Bush Seen Ready to Use Force on Iraq Despite Risk to Hostages : Strategy: He is determined not to repeat the errors of predecessors. But other decisions could determine whether he will ever face that fateful choice.

With the Persian Gulf crisis entering its fourth week, President Bush has apparently made what may be the most fateful decision of all: If necessary, he will use military force against Iraq regardless of the cost to American hostages.

Yet he faces a series of related decisions that could determine whether, in fact, he will ever face that fearful choice.

Bush, who as vice president chaired a task force that drafted U.S. policy on terrorism, is determined not to repeat what he and his key advisers see as the errors of his two immediate predecessors, who--as this White House sees it--allowed Middle East policy to be driven almost solely by the hostage issue.

“As traumatic as it is for the families (of hostages), we cannot let Saddam (Hussein) shift the focus to a hostage issue,” one senior Bush Administration official said. “Then we will have lost.”

Although Administration officials have tried to avoid putting the matter too bluntly in public, Bush himself has made his intentions clear. The hostages’ lives are important, he said at a news conference Wednesday, “but international law . . . must be enforced.”

For now, Bush’s senior advisers are hopeful that a military confrontation with Iraq can be avoided. Some aides point to what they describe as signs that Iraqi President Hussein is beginning to weaken.

But officials concede that they do not know which side will suffer more as the confrontation drags on, and they acknowledge that Hussein may yet be able to find a way to break out of the net now tightening around him.

In addition, Bush has received sharply contradictory advice on a key issue in the conflict--exactly how far the Administration should try to push Hussein.

Many argue that Hussein poses such a threat to his neighbors and to U.S. interests that the United States should use the current crisis to eliminate him--shunning any less drastic resolution of the confrontation.

That position has been advocated by several U.S. foreign policy experts. It also has been pushed, with particular force, by some of Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East, including leaders of Arab nations in the Persian Gulf and Israeli representatives.

Earlier in the crisis, Bush had appeared to accept that analysis. Now, however, the magnitude of the task and the uncertainty about whether Hussein would be replaced by anyone better has caused second thoughts within the White House about the dangers of overreaching.

Within Bush’s inner circle, some officials are now known to believe that the United States should pursue more limited aims--simply, Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait.

Many experts on the Middle East say the argument may be more academic than real. Hussein will inevitably fall from power if he is forced to withdraw from Kuwait, said Geoffrey Kemp, a former National Security Council staff member now with Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The dispute over ultimate aims, however, could have a strong impact on questions such as what conditions the Administration should set for negotiations with Iraq and how quickly U.S. use of force in the conflict should be escalated.

As Administration officials now see it, the Persian Gulf standoff is about to move into a new phase. For the first three weeks, action in the conflict centered around preparations by both sides--the massive deployment of ships, planes and soldiers by the United States and the moves by Iraq to take hostages and settle peace terms with Iran.

During that preparatory phase, U.S. officials worried that the situation could explode at any moment with a preemptive strike by Iraq.

That phase seems to have come to an end. White House officials are confident that with tens of thousands of American troops now in place in Saudi Arabia and an armada of ships in the surrounding gulfs and seas, Iraq’s “window for action” has closed. Any Iraqi attack on U.S. forces, Bush aides feel, could now be repulsed.

Additionally, the groundwork has now been laid for a firm international blockade of Iraqi commerce.

And there are signs that Iraq already has begun suffering because of the cutoff of its oil exports and efforts to block its imports of everything from the corn it uses to feed livestock to the glycol solution it needs to keep vital oil pipelines from clogging.

With the preparations finished, the focus of Administration deliberations is shifting to the question of what the second phase will bring, and what U.S. goals for it should be.

Answers could come as early as this weekend, officials say, with a likely first U.S. move being military action to disable Iraqi tankers that have been shadowed for a week by Navy warships.

Once that decision is made, officials expect the crisis to move into a potentially lengthy period of nervous waiting. Both Washington and Baghdad will probably try to decide whether U.S. and international patience for a long-term confrontation in the gulf can outlast Iraq’s import-dependent economy.

At least some senior Administration officials believe that if Hussein comes to the conclusion that time is running out on him, he will actively seek a face-saving diplomatic solution that would allow him to withdraw from Kuwait.

Those who advocate limited goals for the conflict argue that Bush should try to facilitate those negotiations. Advocates of using this crisis to eliminate Hussein argue that Bush should not give the Iraqi leader such an escape route.

Moreover, some in the Bush Administration expect that a cornered Hussein will try to “lash out” and open hostilities. If so, Bush seems committed to a powerful military response, even if thousands of Americans and others remain at Hussein’s mercy.

Hostilities could also begin from the U.S. side.

For now, officials say that the Administration is not seeking provocation and is content to give its current strategy time to work. The signs so far have been encouraging, they feel, with analysts suggesting that Hussein appears worried.

But if the U.S. position begins to deteriorate--particularly if Hussein begins to succeed in his efforts to influence public opinion in key Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria--Bush may have to move to a more active military posture. In addition, military action almost certainly would be ordered if Iraqi moves cost American lives.

However hostilities started, the lives of the foreigners held hostage in Iraq would clearly be placed in danger.

For the past dozen years, the prospect of causing the death of hostages paralyzed two Presidents. Inevitably, said Judith Kipper of Washington’s Brookings Institution, a hostage-taking “raises the stakes politically for the President.” In Bush’s case, the stakes could be particularly high because of the huge numbers involved--hundreds, potentially thousands, of citizens of nations from across the globe.

But Bush and his aides are determined to prove that they will neither bargain for the release of hostages, as President Ronald Reagan did, nor allow the hostages’ fate to paralyze their decision making, in the manner of President Jimmy Carter.

So far, the White House has been pleasantly surprised by the relatively placid public response to the hostage-taking. But officials are steeling themselves for the criticism that will no doubt come if hostages are harmed, preparing to argue that, with citizens in practically every nation on Earth, the United States must demonstrate that it will not be paralyzed by those who make Americans captive.

Times staff writer Robin Wright, in Washington, contributed to this report.