Most likely, the "seaborne" attack is a deception, designed to keep Saddam's mind concentrated on Kuwait and away from the Turkish frontier.
A seaborne attack is useless to us, which is why it won't be attempted. The chief targets on D-Day will be the airport around Al-Basrah and the oilfields in the south. Saddam will try to blow these up. However, it will be the chief duty of the 101 and the 82nd: a seaborne assault doesn't do that-not when you can go overland out of Western Kuwait.
The capture of Al Basrah early on puts us on the northern and southern banks of the Euphrates. In our rear will be Shiites, who will use this as a signal to go into open revolt. With our base secure, we can motor up the highway to Baghdad and bypass the marsh country that is the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
At the same time, I believe that mech infantry units and armored cavalry will snake down from Turkey to connect with Ranger and Airborne units that had seized airfields between Mosul/Kirkuk and Baghdad's northern approaches.
Wasting energy on seaborne assault when the same assets will be needed to move freight up the Shatt-Al-Arab waterway to Al-Basrah is silly, and won't be done.
Be Seeing You,
Chris Be Seeing You,
Chris