
DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711160046

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIC SCHMITT, THE NEW YORK TIMES 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  147 lines

CAN WE MAKE IRAQ BEHAVE?

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq, crippling the country's electricity networks and oil refineries, severing bridges and destroying roads.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq did not budge.

U.S. military and political officials are thinking carefully about that frustrating lesson as they weigh using force, with the public's growing support, to deal with Saddam's latest act of defiance against the international community.

In this standoff, the Clinton administration's goal is not simply to punish Iraq for something it did, as happened in 1993 after the alleged assassination plot against former President Bush, or last year when the Iraqi army's attacks on Kurdish enclaves drew American air strikes.

This time around, the administration is trying to accomplish something much more difficult: to coerce Saddam into reversing his decision to expel the American members of a United Nations team charged with tracking down and destroying Iraq's secret nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

But if 43 straight days of air bombardment failed to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, why should anything less persuade Saddam to let the inspectors back in now?

Despite those punishing air attacks, which crippled Iraqi communications and hampered Iraqi defenses, a massive ground assault by troops from an American-led coalition was required to drive Saddam's army out of Kuwait.

``Knowing his track record, it's awfully hard to imagine how much of a beating he'd be willing to absorb before he'd come to some agreement,'' said Stanley R. Arthur, a retired four-star admiral who commanded allied naval forces in the gulf war.

For that reason, any strategy that relies on bombing raids to reform Iraq's ways is filled with political and military gambles. Air campaigns, whether carpet-bombing in Vietnam or the withering barrages in the gulf war, have successfully altered the tactical equation on the battlefield but have rarely changed an enemy's behavior.

On Friday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen seemed to acknowledge these limitations on air power: ``We're not looking to bomb anyone back into either a Stone Age or into any sort of submission.''

Unlike the pinprick strikes or two-day missile volleys waged by the United States since the end of the gulf war, Pentagon planners and independent experts say, the current showdown would almost certainly require a larger and more prolonged air assault.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, offered a range of options, from declaring the air space over the entire country a no-flight zone to striking more than 200 military headquarters and intelligence targets to pressure Saddam into compliance.

If that did not work, Cordesman said, other sensitive targets could include some of the 17 presidential palaces Saddam maintains around the country as well as Republican Guard barracks and facilities.

``They could stagger cruise missile attacks to have one every hour or two, deliberately picking high-visibility targets,'' Cordesman said. ``That would send a rolling political message that you're steadily raising the ante without having to stop or have long pauses.''

But any extended air campaign would test the public's patience and draw strong criticism from Arab and European allies, many of whom have urged an end to international sanctions that have had a devastating effect on the Iraqi people but have left Saddam largely unscathed.

Reviving a tactic he used in the gulf war, the Iraqi leader has moved women, children and other civilians near sensitive military targets or suspected weapons depots, daring the United States to risk killing civilians with laser-guided bombs and unmanned Tomahawk cruise missiles.

With American power and prestige at stake, once President Clinton committed himself to using force to win the return of the U.N. inspectors to Iraq, he would have to be prepared to use whatever military might is necessary, including ground troops, or else suffer a humiliating retreat. But no one wants to discuss the ground option now.

``I just don't think we'd put ground troops in the area,'' one four-star general said. ``The American public will really have to think there's a major threat. And I don't think Saudi Arabia or Kuwait would allow it until they see there's a real danger to them.''

To be sure, short of Iraq firing at a U-2 reconnaissance plane flying over its territory, administration officials say, a military response is still a long way off as U.S. emissaries pursue diplomatic options.

Clinton's decision Friday to send a second aircraft carrier, the Norfolk-based George Washington, to the Persian Gulf was an important symbolic show of force. But it also served a practical purpose: If Middle Eastern allies of the United States balk at letting the 200 American warplanes in the region launch strikes from their soil, the 100 combat planes on the two carriers could conduct round-the-clock operations.

Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the commander of American forces in the gulf, visited Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates last week seeking those countries' cooperation. ``It isn't a done deal yet, but it's looking very positive,'' one Pentagon official said.

Moreover, Clinton and his top national security aides began building a case last week that would be the underlying rationale for any military strikes the United States might carry out.

``The real issue here is how can we stop Saddam Hussein from reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction program, and what will achieve that goal?'' Clinton said Friday. ``Any specific tactic will be designed to achieve that goal.

``This is not just a replay of the gulf war,'' Clinton continued. ``This is about the security of the 21st century and the problems everybody is going to have to face dealing with chemical weapons.''

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, gave reporters a graphically detailed statement on the lethal effects of several nerve agents that Iraq is believed to possess. ``The inhalation of just one-ninth of a millionth of a gram of anthrax is fatal within five to seven days 100 percent of the time,'' Bacon said.

While bombing these storage and production sites is an alternative to having the inspectors monitor them, Bacon's chilling description underscores the risk in the strategy. Bombing suspected storage and production sites could unleash a toxic cloud that could kill thousands of people.

Moreover, as the United States learned to its surprise after the gulf war, when U.N. inspectors discovered mountains of chemical and nuclear components, air attacks against clandestine weapons are not very effective. Only when inspectors on the ground examined storage sites did they identify and destroy much of Iraq's illicit arsenal.

Given these obstacles and Saddam's record, Cohen seemed to engage in almost wishful thinking when he was asked Friday why the Iraqi leader would suddenly decide that now was the time to cooperate.

``Perhaps he will recalculate and find that the international community is solidly on the side of insisting upon compliance,'' Cohen said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

This task is tougher:

In 1991 and '93, the goal was to punish Saddam, not coerce him.

Saddam's top targets are almost impossible to destroy with bombs.

Many of our allies would criticize an extended campaign.

L. TODD SPENCER color photos

The guided-missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts, above, departs

Saturday morning for its scheduled six-month deployment in the

Middle East. Once there, it will relieve the Elrod. Also heading

for the region from Norfolk Naval Station on Saturday was the Aegis

destroyer Barry, which will relieve the O'Bannon in the Middle

East. Aboard the Barry was Robert Wiley, father of Jahlill, 10, and

Taneya, 5, and husband of Renee Wiley, right.