Airlifts Over, Conflict Nears a Turning Point

With the evacuation of American women and children from Iraq and Kuwait now at an end, the Bush Administration is preparing for a complex and delicate second phase of the Persian Gulf crisis in which pressure for military action is likely to increase.

For seven weeks, public opinion has been largely preoccupied--and to a certain extent lulled--by the sporadic freedom flights, the flurry of diplomatic initiatives and the assembling of a multinational defense force in the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials acknowledge.

But now that the last U.S.-chartered airlift has left Iraq, the hopeful images of returning Americans will be replaced by nagging reminders of the unprecedented political and economic problems they left behind, problems for which no diplomatic solution appears imminent.

“This is the hunkering-down phase, both diplomatically and militarily,” a U.S. military analyst said. “It’s going to get really grim,” added a senior official who is monitoring events in the gulf.

Administration officials and private analysts cite four key flash points that will increase pressure for military action during the second phase of the crisis: the 4,100 potential foreign hostages, the increasing “Iraqization” of Kuwait, the mounting costs of the crisis and the lurking danger of terrorism.

“This is a much more delicate stage,” an Administration source said. “There’s bound to be more pressure on the President--from Congress, from hostage families and from the press--to do something.”

With the airlift over, the Administration and the public must face the hard reality that 800 to 1,100 Americans remain in Iraq and Kuwait. Different branches of government have different estimates of the actual number, and officials with the State Department’s Kuwait Task Force said they will not have a definitive tally for several days.

More than half of those U.S. citizens are believed to have stayed behind by choice. They fall into three categories: wives of American hostages who refuse to leave their husbands, American wives of Arab nationals and American-born children of Arab parents.

That leaves 300 to 400 American males who have been barred from leaving, enough to rank the gulf standoff as the biggest hostage crisis in American history. (The second-largest involved the abduction of 115 American sailors by Barbary pirates in the late 1700s.)

The government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein already has moved about 100 Americans to strategic installations to act as “human shields,” according to the task force. More may be deployed as the crisis deepens, heightening demands on the Administration to act.

Meanwhile, Hussein’s regime has been inexorably tightening its hold on Kuwait since the Aug. 2 occupation, a policy expected to contribute to pressure for armed intervention as the second phase of the crisis unfolds.

U.S. officials say there are now more Iraqi troops in the tiny city-state than native Kuwaitis. The Iraqis have launched a campaign of “daily terror” designed to drive remaining Kuwaitis out, according to those who have fled across the Saudi border. Iraqis and sympathetic Palestinians have been brought in to occupy abandoned homes and apartments.

“If something doesn’t happen sometime soon, we may wake up one morning and find that Kuwait is Iraq,” one gulf envoy warned.

A third source of pressure is the mounting cost of the crisis. There is the direct financial burden of the deployment and maintenance of the multinational force in or near the Persian Gulf. Compounding that is the indirect impact caused by the doubling of oil prices worldwide, the suspension of trade with oil-rich Iraq and Kuwait and the loss of remittances from foreign workers to poor Asian and African nations.

The U.S. deployment alone is costing about $1.5 billion a month, an amount that is being underwritten through the end of the year by contributions of $6 billion from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Japan and other nations. Organizing further financial support in January for a more open-ended deployment to allow U.N. sanctions more time to take effect may not be easy, U.S. officials concede.

An even larger danger over the long haul may be the indirect costs. Crude oil futures closed Friday at a record $35.43 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The World Bank has estimated that the price could soar to as much as $65 per barrel if a shooting war breaks out. Crude could rise almost that high even without a full-scale conflict if the crisis drags on indefinitely, according to U.S. oil specialists.

Less visible but equally volatile are the costs of lost trade and employment in the gulf. For example, India, a nation not even involved in the multinational defense force, has lost $4 billion so far because of reduced exports, increased oil prices, lost remittances and expenses associated with repatriating more than 100,000 citizens, according to Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council expert during the Ronald Reagan Administration.

“If you look at all the other countries in the Third World and the new democracies as far away as Latin America and Eastern Europe, this is a catastrophe for them,” Kemp said.

“There has to be some kind of end in sight, peace or war, for this crisis not to have a devastating effect on the world economy,” an oil specialist added.

With each new financial blow felt by the United States and other contributors, pressure will grow for a quick solution rather than an indefinite stalemate. West Germany, for example, has pledged contributions of $2 billion for the multinational force and for economic aid in the region. But Bonn also has found that the cost of merging East and West Germany will be much higher than first anticipated and may not be in a position to sustain its contributions.

The final flash point is terrorism, which is considered something of a wild card by U.S. officials. For years, Iraq has aided radical Palestinian groups, and U.S. intelligence recently has monitored surveillance of American diplomatic and military facilities in various parts of the world by pro-Iraqi operatives.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said that the threat of terrorist action is “credible” but not yet “specific.” An attack on a Western target would almost certainly precipitate a public outcry for action.

At the moment, Washington officials and outside analysts envision three alternative outcomes for this second phase of the conflict. The first two involve military action, while the third does not.

One scenario predicts an armed conflict in late October, when about 90% of the multinational military force will be in place and efforts to arrange a diplomatic solution to the crisis will have been effectively exhausted.

“We’re converging into a dark tunnel,” said a well-informed source close to the Saudi government. “Iraq shows no evidence of being prepared to compromise. And the gulf states, the United States and the U.N. community will not accept anything less than total withdrawal. We’re on a collision course more than ever.”

One senior U.S. official insisted that the Administration’s overriding objective is to make the international sanctions effective. “Our thinking is still a long way from war,” he said. But he then conceded, “The speed with which things are happening these days, that could be two to three weeks. Honestly, no one knows.”

Another scenario projects no military action until after the Nov. 6 national elections, based on the assumption that the Administration fears that any military setbacks or American combat casualties could hurt Republican candidates at the polls.

In this view, hostilities still could occur before the end of the year, in part because the passage of time appears to favor Hussein and because U.S. public opinion may grow more negative as the hostage situation develops and the economic impact hits home.

A final scenario envisions a long-term standoff, in hopes that the tightening squeeze of the trade sanctions and the increasing weight of international opinion would force Hussein to back down.

“I can’t believe (President) Bush is going to jeopardize this alliance by going to war,” Kemp said. “It doesn’t follow that because troops are assembled that we have to go to war. The assumption that once you’ve built up this force you can’t leave it rotting in the desert doesn’t hold.”

Under the long-haul scenario, one of two things eventually would happen. Either Hussein would withdraw his forces peaceably from Kuwait or the Iraqi leader would precipitate military action.

“The more he’s pushed against the wall, the more he’s likely to do something stupid,” Kemp said. “Then you’re more likely to get a consensus that we have to go clobber him.”

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