Iraq Standoff Exposes Gap in U.S. Intelligence Force : Strategy: A lack of spies on the ground creates a dangerous blind spot regarding Hussein’s intentions.

As the standoff in the Middle East reaches a tense new high point, Administration officials and intelligence analysts are focusing their thoughts and resources on one urgent question: What will Saddam Hussein do next?

As it struggles for answers, the Bush Administration is relying heavily on U.S. spy satellites and a fleet of reconnaissance planes to peer into Iraq on top-secret missions, snapping photographs and scanning electronic transmissions for sensitive information.

Intelligence experts warn, however, that a vital complement--spies on the ground to relay close-up observations--remains missing from American capacities, leaving the United States with a potentially dangerous blind spot.

“We tend to rely on technology and gadgetry,” said Ray S. Cline, a former deputy CIA director. “The real problem is looking into the hearts and minds of leaders.”

In crises like the current one, he added, “We always start too late.”

The intelligence gap is a hangover from an overnight shift in focus for the United States, away from traditional Communist adversaries and toward one it previously had found little need to penetrate. It is also a product of Iraq’s closed society and intense secrecy, which allow little room for what one official called “paleface spies” to operate.

Hamstrung, U.S. policy-makers and Pentagon planners are hoping that hints of Hussein’s intentions will be telegraphed in movements they can hear or see from afar--the movements of tanks, the angle of missiles, the burst of sensitive communications.

In comments this week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin L. Powell, expressed confidence that U.S. intelligence would be “adequate.” He said the United States had “an extremely good picture of what the situation looks like on the ground north of the Kuwaiti-Saudi border.”

And on Friday, a high-ranking military source disclosed that intelligence reports had allowed Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the U.S. Central Command, to warn the Joint Chiefs of the impending Iraqi invasion about six days before it occurred. Schwarzkopf was able to accurately predict both the timing and magnitude of the assault, the source said.

Other military experts agreed that satellites and spy planes would probably give ample warning of a conventional Iraqi military attack, even if surface-to-surface Scud missiles were the weapon chosen. About 12 to 24 hours’ warning of a military action could be expected, they said.

But they expressed concern that the lack of on-the-ground insight leaves the United States vulnerable to less visible developments, including planning for possible terrorist attacks. Even more pressing, warned John Pike, an expert on high-tech espionage: “All that hardware in space is not going to do much good in keeping track of American hostages.”

U.S. intelligence officials refused to provide details about the “sources and methods” used by the the United States in the current crisis. “If there’s ever a time when you need to hold it under wraps, it’s now,” warned Lt. Gen. William C. Odom, a former director of the National Security Agency.

Knowledgeable experts outside government said, however, that the array of hardware now devoted to the Middle East crisis includes advanced satellites and planes capable of tracking virtually any movement or broadcast in Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

At least one Magnum satellite, which intercepts electronic signals from its fixed position 22,000 miles over the Mideast, apparently is doing nothing but monitoring Iraqi developments 24 hours a day, the analysts said.

At the same time, at least four Keyhole photo reconnaissance satellites were understood to be making frequent passes over the region to survey the landscape with cameras capable of reading a license plate from an altitude of 200 to 500 miles.

Closer to land, sophisticated eavesdropping aircraft known as RC-135 Rivet Joints are making frequent forays along the Kuwaiti border, experts said, while high-flying TR-1s and more conventional F-4s peer hundreds of miles into Iraq from Saudi airspace.

Although cloud cover in much of the world can thwart such monitoring, the experts said the constant desert sunshine is an intelligence planner’s dream.

“The good thing about the Middle East is that you don’t have to worry about clouds,” said Michael Dunn, a private consultant who runs International Estimate.

Images gathered by the planes and satellites are almost instantaneously relayed to the National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington, where they are examined by Navy analysts armed with a “watch list” of sites at which small variations could mean big things.

Among the most closely evaluated indicators of possible Iraqi intentions, the experts said, are Scud missile batteries, where a change in the angle of a missile could betray preparations for launch, and the deployment of forces along national frontiers, who might move from entrenched positions to more mobile ones.

If one of the indicators, updated every few hours by a new satellite flyover, sets off analysts’ alarms, “a copy could be on the President’s desk within an hour after the picture was taken,” said Pike, head of policy for the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists.

The electronic signals, gathered by Magnum and Vortex satellites from radio broadcasts, radar operations and walkie-talkie transmissions, are similarly relayed to Washington for analysis. With computers at the National Security Agency in Ft. Meade, Md., homing in on key frequencies, the intercepts can provide clues about the locations of Hussein and his key deputies, the experts said.

At the same time, analysts wearing headphones in the roving RC-135s, flying along the Kuwaiti border, are believed to have developed in the last two weeks what one source called an “electronic order of battle” by mapping and intercepting most Iraqi military communications.

As tensions mount, the effort has enabled the airborne analysts to monitor crucial command facilities to detect any increase in military activities. In the event of war, it could guide an electronic jamming campaign.

But the experts warned that the U.S. interception capability in Iraq is probably limited to communications that are broadcast in the atmosphere. Without help on the ground, telephone conversations and private discussions within a single room remain out of reach of American analysts.

And without confirmation from human sources--which intelligence analysts have always regarded as the most accurate--even the powerful “eyes in the sky” sometimes leave analysts wondering.

A government source said the United States was left frustrated earlier last week, as Iraqi forces withdrew from the Iranian border, by its inability to discover what had happened to a particular elite unit. “We lost them for a few days,” the source acknowledged.

In an attempt to compensate for its deficiencies in Iraq, the United States is believed to be relying largely on friendly intelligence agencies, particularly the Israeli Mossad, which is reported to have had considerable success in penetrating the country.

While better than nothing, such dependence is regarded by analysts as dangerous, in part because of the potential for political bias or manipulation.

Times staff writer John M. Broder contributed to this report.