Winds Thwart U.S. Landing on Saudi Beach

A major U.S. military exercise designed to send a signal to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein foundered Sunday as high winds and heavy seas thwarted a planned Hovercraft-borne assault on a shoreline south of occupied Kuwait.

Nearly half a Marine force that was to storm a Saudi beachhead was instead left stranded at sea in a setback that muffled what was to have been a dramatic show of American strength in an operation code-named Imminent Thunder.

Another Marine contingent reached land successfully aboard a fleet of helicopters but then dug into defensive positions to await reinforcement from the seaborne forces. A second attempt to bring the Hovercraft ashore is scheduled for today.

The high-profile exercise, about 80 miles south of Iraqi-occupied territory, appeared timed to coordinate with President Bush’s visit here this week and to reinforce his new warnings of a possible American offensive.

Instead, it stood as an illustration of all that can go wrong in combat as the Marines’ air-cushioned landing craft, designed to skim over the waves and carry troops and heavy vehicles ashore, proved unable to overcome the wind-tossed sea.

It was unclear whether the assault could have continued during actual fighting. With swells of up to 10 feet, the Marine commander on the scene, Maj. Gen. Harry W. Jenkins Jr., cited safety as the reason the Hovercraft mission was scrubbed.

“We don’t want to risk anybody if we don’t have to,” Jenkins said. Asked whether the Marines would have tried to land in case of combat, he answered: “I think so.”

At sea, however, the commander of the U.S. amphibious ship from which the so-called Landing Craft/Air Cushion vessels were to be launched made clear that similar stormy conditions could render the Hovercraft inoperable even in actual combat.

In high seas, the Hovercraft cannot “get over the hump” to create the cushion of air on which they ride, Navy Cmdr. Bill Marshall told reporters aboard his ship, the Gunston Hall.

The aborted landing raises new questions about how the Marines might fare if called upon to launch a seaborne raid on Kuwait, whose coastline has been heavily fortified by Iraqi forces against such a U.S. assault.

While the Hovercraft is only one of three means of landing Marines, the high-speed vessel would almost certainly be crucial to any large-scale American assault because it can be launched from outside the range of Iraq’s shore-based Silkworm anti-ship missiles.

At the same time, the emergence for the first time of winter conditions as a limiting factor in military operations here marks a potentially important turning point after what had been two months of virtually ideal weather for combat.

In the last week, a balmy autumn climate has yielded to blustery winds and plunging nighttime temperatures that are expected to become more severe in the next two months.

On Sunday, a steady 25-knot wind swept the landing beach with clouds of stinging sand and churned the sea into a rolling mass of four- to 10-foot swells. The night before, Marines on an overnight training mission huddled for warmth under heavy sleeping bags in a bitter desert night that made the scorching days of August seem a pleasant memory.

While not as debilitating as the summertime heat, the winter weather is far less predictable and brings the constant threat of a sudden squall on land or sea, according to U.S. officials here.

The partial cancellation of the amphibious landing Sunday marked a further setback to what officials here said was initially envisioned as a far larger operation to take place much closer to Iraqi-held territory.

In interviews, commanders of the U.S. operation sought to minimize the potentially provocative nature of the exercise, with Rear Adm. John B. LePlante, commander of the amphibious task force, noting that the 1,000-man assault was “about as small an operation as we would do.”

Other sources, however, said that an initial U.S. plan for the exercise called for a landing of “many thousands” of Marines within “a few dozen” miles of the Saudi-Kuwaiti frontier. An American liaison to Saudi forces, Cmdr. Christopher J. Ellis, said without providing details: “We were preparing to do it closer to Kuwait.”

Even as they moved the exercise farther south, U.S. officials intentionally sent a bellicose signal in naming the operation Imminent Thunder.

At the same time, in marking the first time elements of the 10,000-man floating Marine force had come ashore anywhere close to Iraqi-held territory, the exercise signaled a tightening of military pincers by U.S. forces, who have inched gradually closer to Kuwait in recent weeks.

Apart from its symbolic value, the exercise also served as the focus for the most extensive coordination to date among U.S. services and their allies in an aerial operation designed to simulate a battle for control of the skies.

Officials said that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines worked with the British and French air forces in overseeing about 1,100 different aircraft involved in the exercise. At the same time, a small force of Saudi marines participated for the first time in a U.S. amphibious landing.

Citing those achievements, Jenkins, the commander of all ship-based Marines in the theater, said he regarded the exercise as a success despite the inability of the Hovercraft to ferry Marines to shore.

“The biggest thing is communications and command-and-control,” the general said in describing the objectives of the operation. “All the indications I’ve had, it is working pretty well,” he said.

Nevertheless, officials were clearly frustrated by the problems with the Hovercraft in what was the first amphibious landing exercise that reporters were permitted to attend.

In advance of the operation, one officer told reporters aboard the amphibious ship that he believed Saddam Hussein should “take a good hard look” at the Imminent Thunder exercise because “what you see is what you’re going to get.”

What the Marines got was a long wait as the Gunston Hall dispatched one of the large, square craft for a test run in the stormy seas, only to find it nearly disappearing in the heavy white spray that washed over its sides.

Officers aboard the ship initially were optimistic that they could launch the 350-man Hovercraft beach assault simultaneously with the helicopter transports dropping about 400 Marines further inland.

But as the Chinook choppers carried Marines to the landing zone, the Hovercraft and its Marine contingent remained aboard the Gunston Hall about 25 miles at sea. The landing beach, scouted in advance by Navy Seals, remained virtually empty.

Two hours after the landing was to have taken place, a loudspeaker aboard the amphibious ship reported that the operation had been postponed for a day because the seas were “a little on the rough side.”

In interviews, American commanders said that previous major U.S. amphibious exercises conducted since the crisis began--each involving about 10,000 Marines landing on the shores of Oman--had been successful.

But some Marines indicated that at least one of the exercises had also met with difficulties involving conventional landing craft designed to float cargo to shore.

In one exercise, problems caused by the slope of the beach meant that only three of 17 tanks in one Marine company were able to make it ashore, according to Sgt. Scott Durbin, a tank commander.