Iranian Buildup on War Front Told : But U.S. Officials Expect 5-Year Stalemate to Continue

Iran has sent thousands of fresh troops--most of them poorly trained conscripts--to the front in the long-stalemated Persian Gulf war, possibly indicating a new offensive is imminent, U.S. officials confirmed Friday.

But Administration officials and American academic experts agreed that neither Iran nor Iraq has the military might to win the five-year-old conflict, which they say has come to resemble the trench warfare of World War I in its appalling casualties and lack of a clearcut winner.

“There are indications the Iranians are moving troops to the front in large numbers, but they have done this in the past and just left them there for months,” one State Department official said. “This would be a lousy time of year for a general offensive because of the weather.”

Neither Giving Up

Another Administration official said, “It is still basically in the stalemate mode. There have been (Iranian) troop movements and there may be some limited probes, but at this point it doesn’t appear that we are looking at the long-awaited final offensive.

“I don’t think either side wants to lay it on the line, but neither side is going to indicate any intention to give up, either.”

This official said Iraq has responded to the Iranian buildup by moving some of its own troops and by conducting frequent small-scale air raids against Iran’s Kharg Island oil facilities.

“The raids are usually with two or three planes,” the official said. “They drop some bombs and cause some damage; the Iranians repair the damage.”

Reuters news agency reported in a dispatch from Manama, Bahrain, that Iran had massed more than half a million troops on the southern and south-central war fronts. Although Administration officials said they did not know the exact size of the Iranian buildup, they indicated that 500,000 was probably too high a figure.

Fighting Declines

Philip Stoddard of the Middle East Institute in Washington said, “It may be one of those wars that is over without being over. The fighting may go on for some time, but during the last few years the level of fighting has declined.

“It is a First World War-type of war with an immense network of trenches and other fortifications along a front that is long and deep,” he said. “From time to time, there are ‘over the top’ attacks, but these offensives haven’t done much better than offensives in the First World War.

“This kind of war can be exhausting and cause a lot of casualties without much effect. Nobody is going to win, and nobody is going to lose. Nobody collapses. Nobody attacks Saudi Arabia. Nobody knocks anybody out. What it has done is kill 400,000 people on both sides.”

The State Department official said, “The casualties, as horrendous as they are, are below the replacement levels” in the two countries, where birth rates remain high and large numbers of youths are nearing military age.

“We don’t think either side has the ability to win a military victory,” he added.

U.N. Help Asked

The official Iraqi news agency reported Friday that Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz sent a message to the U.N. Security Council claiming that Iran was planning “a massive offensive with the aim of seizing Iraqi territory and threatening Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Aziz urged the United Nations to “prevent Iran from continuing its aggression on Iraq.”

U.S. analysts believe the war will drag on as long as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini remain in power. Iran has made Hussein’s overthrow its primary demand for ending the fighting.

Iranian President Ali Khamenei told worshipers attending the Friday Muslim prayer service that “peace between us and Iraq is not possible as long as the current (Iraqi) regime is in power.”

Although the war remains stalemated, Iraq’s political situation has deteriorated somewhat in recent weeks, said Frederick W. Axelgard, a Middle East expert on the staff of Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Gulf Alliances

He said Jordan’s recent overtures to Syria were certain to be troubling to the Baghdad regime. Jordan has been one of Iraq’s closest allies during the war, providing Iraq’s only outlet to the sea after the Persian Gulf was effectively closed to Iraqi shipping, while Syria has supported Iran.

In addition, Axelgard said, the Gulf Cooperation Council, a Saudi-led organization of the Arab states bordering on the Gulf, recently tried to strike a balance between Tehran and Baghdad after years of firm support for Iraq.

“Add to that the buildup along the border and reports that the Iranians have been seeking and perhaps acquiring chemical weapons capability, and it points to a difficult two or three months for the Iraqis,” he said.

“They are facing not really a bleak picture, but a changing and difficult picture,” Axelgard said. “They can’t afford to be comfortable, although their defenses have held up well.”