The opening days of a war with Iraq would likely see weapons and tactics straight out of Buck Rogers. Cruise missiles, pilotless drones, and "blackout bombs" spitting out spools of carbon filaments to short out power lines. Powerful electromagnetic pulses - "E-bombs" - frying computer and communication circuitry. High-power microwave weapons.

The point is to hamper the ability of Iraq to fight back by shutting down critical electronic systems, especially those in hardened underground bunkers. They might also help if Saddam Hussein has hidden biological or chemical weapons, since those could be damaged if refrigeration units fail.

A war with Iraq, in fact, may prove the biggest test to date of the effectiveness of many of the US military's fancy new weapons. For the first time since the Panama invasion in 1989, the US may be fighting a largely urban war. Thus the tactics and technology it uses will be crucial in determining the level of casualties and perhaps the length of the war itself.

One possible genre of weapons that could be used, for instance, is riot-control agents - nonlethal chemicals such as tear gas and pepper spray - to flush out enemy fighters or put down POW revolts.

US military officials won't say much about any of this. "There certainly exists the possibility for the use of nonlethal weaponry under certain circumstances," Army General Tommy Franks, commander of all US forces in the Persian Gulf region, said recently. "One example would be offensive electronics."

But, he added, "The specifics of those circumstances wouldn't be something that we would want to talk about in public."

Others have been talking about the advantages and dangers of such weapons for decades, and their development has been going on for nearly as long. Some have already been tested in combat.

"In Kosovo, unlike the first Gulf War, instead of bombing electricity generating plants, we dropped carbon filaments that short-circuited the plants for 4-6 hours," says Army Col. Dan Smith (USA, ret.). "That's the good news. The bad news is that unless the filaments are collected when they finally fall to the ground, winds can pick them up and throw them back into the wires, recreating short-circuits."

Other experts caution that such weapons can in fact be deadly. "It should be noted that nonlethality is an aspiration rather than an assured outcome," says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., who has recently completed a study of directed-energy weapons. "Some people may be killed by the direct or indirect effects of 'nonlethal' weapons."

Most controversial would be the use of chemicals designed to defeat enemy soldiers without killing them - particularly in what is called Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain, where innocent civilians could be caught in the crossfire or used as human shields.

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