ANALYSIS : Mideast Edges Into Balance of Terror Mode

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s threat to strike back with chemical weapons in the event of an Israeli attack has formally introduced the deterrent balance-of-terror concept to the volatile Middle East, Israeli analysts say.

Israel completed the equation by responding with veiled threats of massive retaliation.

This give-and-take Monday gave rhetorical shape to a development long in the making: buildups by Israel and the Arab powers, notably Syria and Iraq, to make it too costly for either to try to destroy the other.

Israel has its top-secret, if well-known, atomic weapons program. Iraq and Syria have chemical weapons and perhaps the capability of delivering them with missiles.

Zeev Eytan, a researcher at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, commented: “Hussein’s contribution is to make his threat known. Until now, he had always denied reports of a chemical buildup or was silent on them. Hussein has taken a step to making a deterrent credible. He has announced it.”

Hussein’s open threat has prompted Israel to try to frighten him out of using chemical arms.

A statement by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir assured Hussein that Israel harbors no aggressive intentions against anyone--an apparent effort to allay fears that Israel is prepared to launch an attack on Iraqi missile installations or chemical weapons plants.

The soft touch was followed by a brandishing of Israel’s own deterrent potential.

“Israel is strong, the force is with it, and Iraq is not out of the range of our ability to harm it severely,” former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said. “We should take (Hussein’s) words into account. On the other hand, we have a smashing response, many-fold stronger than the threats of Saddam Hussein.”

The “smashing response,” Israeli analysts believe, is Israel’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Israeli experts noted that Hussein’s threat expanded the potential use of chemical weapons beyond what Iraq had dared before. In its war with Iran, Iraq used chemical weapons on its own citizens--Kurdish guerrillas--and against Iranian troops, first to turn them back and later, on at least two occasions, to spearhead an offensive.

Hussein stopped short of attacking Iranian cities with chemical weapons, something he has now threatened against Israel.

“The rules of the game have changed,” said Dore Gold, another researcher at the Jaffee Center.

Along with the rules, the language is also changing. Terms like first strike and assured destruction are being thrown around, as if the language of the Cold War had migrated south.

Many question marks remain in the military balance between Israel and Iraq, analysts caution. For example, it is not clear that Iraq actually has the binary chemical weapons Hussein apparently alluded to Monday. Binary chemical weapons consist of two different chemicals, which are relatively harmless while separated but can be deadly when combined. They are the type usually put in missiles.

Hussein may have been referring to some combination such as, say, mustard gas and cyanide, rather than truly binary materials, Israeli experts conjecture.

Israel observers have little doubt that Iraq aspires to build such weapons--and to go beyond that. The recent disclosure of an Iraqi attempt to obtain triggers for nuclear bombs confirmed that Iraq wants to revive a program to make nuclear weapons.

Sooner or later, according to analyst Gerald Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University, Iraq will acquire nuclear weapons.

“The question,” Steinberg said, “is what should Israel’s response be? I think the Israeli government is moving toward a different position, a position of deterrence . . . meaning that any move to deploy those weapons, or attempt to put them on missiles or aircraft that could be used against Israel, would lead to an Israeli first strike.”

Don Kerr, a military analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, suggested that Hussein’s speech was double-edged, meant to rattle the chemical saber but, more important, to insist that Iraq is not developing a nuclear capability and should not be the target of an Israeli preemptive strike.

By Kerr’s reasoning, whatever Iraq may have in terms of chemical warheads, its delivery system is not yet ready to threaten Israeli cities.

“It’s not a threat of enormous significance” in terms of what damage or loss of life the Iraqis might be able to inflict, Kerr said. But it does have other effects: It stirs fear, and fear creates instability.

The main message of Hussein’s speech, Kerr said, should be read in nuclear terms: “Leave me alone, you have no reason to be afraid of me.” Of the chemical threat, he said, “It represents Hussein to the Arabs as a strongman.”

If Israel perceives a real threat in Iraq’s chemical arsenal, it is faced with a dilemma in terms of its response. The Israeli armed forces have a limited number of chemical weapons, Israeli officials have said, and only for experimental purposes. That leaves Israel with conventional weapons--rifles, artillery, tanks and jets--or nuclear weapons, with nothing in between for a calibrated response.

A military source said: “What would be Israel’s answer to a chemical attack? Or its use on the battlefield? Nuclear? It’s something that has to be considered.”

There is a growing perception that Israel will not launch a preemptive strike to destroy either Iraqi missiles or chemical weapons facilities. Israeli warplanes knocked out an Iraqi nuclear reactor nine years ago, but times have changed, experts here say.

At the time of the attack on the reactor, Iraq was preoccupied with its war with Iran. (That conflict is now on hold after a cease-fire was signed in August, 1988.) Also, Iraq lacked the missile punch to hit Israel from afar. Recently, Hussein has placed missiles within range of Tel Aviv.

Some Israeli observers still view Syria, which has troops within minutes of Israel’s borders, as a greater threat than the Baghdad government. Iraq must still keep an eye out for Iran. In addition, Iraq’s large armies would need three days to cross Jordan and arrive at Israeli-controlled territory.

“You can create a lot of havoc with chemical weapons,” Arye Shalev, a retired army general, suggested, “but you can’t conquer a country with them. You need the troops on the ground for that.”

Daniel Williams reported from Jerusalem and Nick B. Williams Jr. reported from Nicosia, Cyprus.

BACKGROUND

International law forbids the use of chemical weapons but not their manufacture or stockpiling. The United States and Soviet Union are known to have sizable stockpiles of nerve gases and similar chemical weapons. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, at least eight other countries are reliably reported to have them: Afghanistan, France, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Vietnam. In addition, six other countries--Myanmar (Burma), China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel and Taiwan--are thought to have such weapons.