Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991                   TAG: 9102170068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NICOSIA, CYPRUS                                LENGTH: Medium

`MOTHER OF BATTLES' NEAR BUT CAN ANYBODY WIN?

Kuwait, plundered down to its traffic lights, is a wasteland. Over the past month, much of Iraq's infrastructure also has been reduced to rubble by ferocious bombing.

Fallout from the Gulf War cannot be predicted with any great accuracy.

But there are fears that in the postwar period, as the new political shape of the Middle East emerges in the wake of the defeat that almost certainly faces Saddam, anti-Western sentiment will grow.

The political struggle for the region likely will intensify because more and more Arabs are seeing the Gulf War as a conflict between Arabs, even outlaws like Saddam, and Western "infidels."

"No matter what the outcome, this is a story with no winners, only losers," said American Middle East analyst Christine Helms. "Even if this crisis quickly fades, its shadow will loom in the years ahead."

A putative Iraqi offer to withdraw made Friday was rendered virtually meaningless by its list of conditions, which the allies quickly rejected.

If it was an Iraqi ploy to play for time, it didn't work. The allies flew more than 2,500 sorties on the same day and commanders said the bombing will continue unabated.

"We must keep in mind that the war has not yet reached its climax," leading Israeli analyst Zeev Schiff cautioned.

He said Saddam's only real achievement so far "has been his capacity to endure."

"The Iraqi Army has not been broken. Despite the heavy allied bombing, it retains its fighting ability."

Euphoric predictions by some allied leaders that a campaign against Saddam would be short and sharp, a week or two at most, have evaporated with the realization that getting the Iraqis out of Kuwait could be a tough, bloody job.

Despite the losses the allies claim Saddam has suffered since Jan. 17, there remains a healthy respect for his army's capabilities.

Abdul-Karim Abou-Nasr, a respected Kuwati political commentator, noted that Saddam "hopes to make the ground battle an act of revenge for all the destruction that Iraq has suffered."

Allied casualties have been low in the air-and-missile offensive - fewer than 30 aircraft lost and about 50 airmen killed, missing or captured in more than 70,000 missions.

All that could change when the allies go in on the ground.

The impression is that the allied commanders have been surprised that the Iraqi military machine still functions despite the millions of tons of bombs and missiles rained down on it.

It's unclear how much that may reflect a serious underestimation of Iraq's military and the elaborate system of air defenses, logistics and deception Saddam's army developed during the 1980-88 war with Iran and in the two years since the cease-fire.

But U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney noted last week that he was struck by the scale and spread of Saddam's military establishment.

He said it wasn't until he was forced to look closely at an adversary's armed might because of the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait that he discovered how extensive it is.

The allies, using their high-tech weaponry, have been taking out strategic targets such as chemical weapons and petrochemical plants, nuclear facilities, missile factories, military research centers and a wide range of Iraq's infrastructure.

The destruction of many of these targets were not necessarily essential to forcing Iraq out of Kuwait.

The objective was to eliminate the long-term threat to the region by Saddam or whoever might take his place. Getting rid of Saddam is clearly on the U.S. and British agenda, although the Arab allies may not feel comfortable with that.

Amid the confusion over just what the Americans' war aims are, the big question is how far the allies will go to depose Saddam and eliminate Iraq's military might.

President Bush may have spelled it out Friday when, in giving the thumbs down to Iraq's withdrawal offer, he urged the "the Iraqi military, the Iraqi people, to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside."