Bush Joins GIs, Warns of Iraq Nuclear Threat : Saudi Arabia: He spends the holiday with them and urges ‘some pain now to avoid even worse pain later.’

President Bush, in a somber Thanksgiving Day message to American forces in the Persian Gulf, warned that Iraq’s progress in developing nuclear weapons gives their mission a sense of urgency and that they may soon face combat--”some pain now to avoid even worse pain later.”

Helicoptering from one encampment to another under a blistering desert sun, Bush, spelling out his reasons for a massive deployment of troops in the gulf, several times raised the specter of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein’s capacity for using weapons of mass destruction.

Americans understand, he said, “that we can sacrifice now, or we can pay an even stiffer price later as Saddam moves to multiply his weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and, most ominous, nuclear.

“And we all know that Saddam Hussein has never possessed a weapon that he hasn’t used. And we will not allow the hope for a more peaceful world to rest in the hands of this brutal dictator.”

With polls showing support for the President’s Persian Gulf policy dropping sharply and members of Congress raising questions about his rationale for putting the United States on a virtual war footing, Bush used the Thanksgiving Day visit, covered by a horde of journalists, to emphasize for the first time the danger that Iraq has the potential for developing nuclear weapons and that Hussein would not hesitate to use them.

To demonstrate that he has bipartisan support for his gulf policy, Bush brought with him--and introduced as special guests--the congressional leaders of both parties: House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), Senate Democratic Leader George J. Mitchell of Maine, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, and House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois.

But Mitchell, who seriously questioned Bush’s decision two weeks ago to deploy as many as 240,000 more troops in the gulf, emphasized to reporters that Democratic support for Bush’s policy is limited to the original deployment of about 238,000 troops.

Mitchell and other Democrats have expressed concern that the massive buildup implies that U.S. strategy is shifting from defending Saudi Arabia from a potential Iraqi attack to launching a military offensive against Iraq.

Asked if the Democratic leaders’ presence signifies support for Bush’s gulf policy, Mitchell said, “Broad bipartisan congressional support exists for the policy as stated by the President at the time of the deployment to Saudi Arabia and the mission as described by the President at the time of that initial deployment.”

However, Michel stressed that he supports Bush’s more aggressive posture. He said U.N.-sponsored economic sanctions imposed against Iraq should be given more time to force Hussein to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, but not the 12 to 18 months he contends Democrats are proposing.

“I think you can’t delay it forever,” he said. That doesn’t play very well when you talk with the locals, the Saudis. But it will be a long time before I depart company with my President’s position.”

Bush has been reluctant in the past to use Iraq’s potential to develop nuclear weapons as a justification for military action because that would imply a threat to attack Iraq and destroy its war machine rather than simply drive Iraq’s invading force out of Kuwait.

And several of the Arab countries aligned with the U.S.-led international force confronting Iraq would oppose an attack on Iraq itself. For one thing, they see an Iraqi military force as a counterbalance to the military forces of Israel and non-Arab Iran.

But the President repeated the theme so many times in his visits Thursday--addressing troops at three ground encampments and aboard the helicopter assault ship Nassau in the Persian Gulf--that he apparently has settled on it as a major justification in explaining the massive troop deployment to Congress and the American public.

A Los Angeles Times Poll last week showed that 34% of Americans believe that Iraq’s potential for launching a nuclear attack would be enough to justify “a major war.” That level of support was far higher than the support offered for most of the Administration’s other proposed rationales. For example, only 18% of those polled thought that restoring the government of Kuwait to power is worth fighting “a major war.”

Bush declared that “every day that passes brings Saddam Hussein one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal. And that’s another reason, frankly, why more and more our mission is marked by a real sense of urgency.”

He discounted the consensus of scientists that Iraq is unlikely to succeed in developing nuclear weapons for at least 10 years. “Those who would measure the timetable for Saddam’s atomic program in years may be seriously underestimating the reality of that situation and the gravity of the threat,” he declared.

Ever since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, several senior Bush advisers, who agreed to be interviewed on condition that they not be identified, have maintained that Iraq’s war-making capacity, with chemical weapons and the ability to deliver them with missiles, is so awesome and so destabilizing to the oil-rich Persian Gulf region that U.S. policy should be designed to destroy the country’s war machine.

Bush has never publicly embraced that policy. But his repeated statements that Hussein and his war machine pose an unacceptable threat to stability in the Persian Gulf, coupled with his declarations that the United States is keeping its military options open, have given his gulf policy a much more aggressive coloring than its originally announced purpose of defending Saudi Arabia against possible Iraqi attack.

Several times during his talks with troops and in answering reporters’ questions, Bush sounded frustrated that a great many Americans have not been convinced by the justifications he has offered for ordering such a massive deployment of troops in the gulf region.

He said that while “it is fair” for Americans to ask why so many troops have been deployed, “it’s not all that complicated. There are three key reasons we’re here with our U.N. allies making a stand in defense of peace and freedom. We’re here to protect freedom. We’re here to protect our future. And we’re here to protect innocent life.

“I hope the American people understand this more clearly now,” he said. “But I darn sure get the feeling that the people out here understand it.”

Fresh from a visit to Czechoslovakia, Bush also said he had seen firsthand that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and its effect on world oil prices is “causing great economic hardship in the countries which can afford it the least.”

He said the progress of Czechoslovakia’s “peaceful revolution has already been damaged by the shock waves from Iraq’s aggression.”

The President, tired and hoarse from the hectic schedule he has followed since arriving in Prague a week ago, spoke emotionally and in an uplifting tone to the American forces, noting that “those in uniform. . . will always bear the heaviest burden.”

“We understand something of what you endure,” Bush told Marines at the end of his visit, “the waiting, the uncertainty, the demands of family and military life.”

Recalling his own days as a fighter pilot in World War II, the President said his visit to the gulf reminded him of “another Thanksgiving--another group of young Americans far from home--and for me it was Nov. 23, 1944.”

“And I was 20 years old and six days away from my last mission as a carrier pilot. And our ship, the San Jacinto, laid off the coast of the Philippines. And while we celebrated without family that year, like you, we all came together as friends and as part of something bigger than ourselves to thank God for our blessings. And we joined together, as you are now, as a part of a proud force for freedom.”

Bush told reporters later he had been “very moved” by his visits to the troops. “I’ve learned they’re just like my own kids,” he said. “They really wish they were home.”

The President, wearing a blue, open-collar work shirt with rolled-up sleeves, khaki slacks and desert boots, was applauded and cheered frequently when he addressed troops at four different events, all carefully orchestrated by White House aides for maximum television coverage.

He was accompanied by his wife, Barbara--also a big hit with the troops--who wore khaki slacks, a camouflage jacket with a tan T-shirt underneath, with faux pearl and gold earrings, white jogging shoes and a white sun visor.

While they visited with about 1,200 soldiers for a Thanksgiving lunch in the desert about 80 miles north of Dhahran, the troops shouted out greetings as the First Lady worked the crowd. “We love your designer outfit!” shouted Air Force Maj. C. J. Hernandez. “I love it, too,” she responded, smiling.

Altogether, the President and First Lady visited with between 5,000 and 6,000 of the estimated 240,000 American troops now deployed in the gulf region.

They visited about 2,000 sailors and Marines aboard the Nassau; about 1,500 U.S. Marines, British troops (the famed Desert Rats of the 7th Armored Brigade) and Seabees at an encampment that Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the gulf, said was “very close to the Kuwaiti border,” and about 1,800 Dhahran-based U.S. and allied military personnel at the U.S.-operated air base in Dhahran.

“Amidst the threat of war, we pray for peace,” Bush intoned during a brief religious service.

The service was aboard the Nassau, anchored in the gulf, instead of ashore in Saudi Arabia, in order not to offend the Saudis with non-Muslim services and give Hussein propaganda material to try to drive a wedge between the United States and its Arab allies. Hussein has already accused King Fahd of allowing American troops to hold religious services that defile the two holiest sites of the Muslim faith.

Television and George Bush merged in the sand as the President’s visit with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia was as much a day for the media as a day for thanksgiving, observes TV critic Howard Rosenberg. F1.

LONGING FOR HOME: It was a somber Thanksgiving for many troops. A6. Related stories: A6-9, A24, A26