Iraqi Missile Test Caught U.S. Completely Off Guard : Gulf crisis: Some officials thought war was about to erupt. Incident raises questions about intelligence efforts.

The launching of three medium-range Iraqi missiles in what turned out to be a test caught American intelligence agencies so completely by surprise early this month that some U.S. officials feared war was about to erupt in the Persian Gulf.

And the failure of America’s sophisticated satellite system to detect what was afoot until the first missile had been in flight for six minutes and was only one minute from impact raises serious questions about how much warning time U.S. forces would have in the event of a real attack.

Officials previously had believed that Iraq could not carry out the several hours of fueling and other prelaunch preparations needed for such missile firings without detection by U.S. satellites and other sensors--ostensibly in time for an American counter-strike before the Iraqi weapons could lift off.

In the test, however, the Iraqis completed all the preparations and even the first launch without being discovered.

Some experts say privately that the incident--first reported by the Financial Times of London and confirmed by U.S. officials--represents a significant intelligence failure. While some Pentagon and Administration officials dispute that assessment, one Administration official admitted the firings “gave us pause.”

“We had no advanced warning,” he said.

The Dec. 2 missile launches were a surprise even though Iraq had openly warned airliners to keep out of its airspace after midnight the night before.

Baghdad gave no reason, but on the strength of the warning, Israeli pilots were reportedly ordered to be in their cockpits, ready to strike back if Israel were attacked during the period. U.S. aircraft were also at a very high state of readiness and would apparently have retaliated if the missiles had been directed at U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

“A lot of people were in their cockpits ready to go,” a senior U.S. official said.

British and other allied forces were on high alert too, according to European reports.

But no one knew what the Iraqis were planning, and indications are that American intelligence was surprised not only by the launches but also by both the launching point and the direction in which the missiles were fired.

The nearness of war was seemingly confirmed this week by the chief U.S. diplomat in Baghdad, Joseph C. Wilson IV. He received an urgent telephone call the morning of Dec. 2 from the State Department in Washington, he said, informing him that “the balloon is going up--this is no drill.”

The warning apparently was flashed to Wilson soon after the launch of the first missile was detected.

Though many details of what happened remain unclear, it is known that the three missiles were fired at half-hour intervals, beginning at 4 a.m., from a site near Basra, in southeastern Iraq. They traveled westward more than 400 miles, toward Israel, but fell in a remote part of Iraqi territory.

Iraq has a variety of missiles with different capabilities. If missiles of the type used in the test had been fired southward, they had sufficient range to hit U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. If launched from the western part of Iraq, instead of from a point near Basra, they could have reached Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Officials said they believe the missiles tested, thought to be so-called Abbas weapons with a range of 500 miles, have relatively poor accuracy and relatively small payload capacity. If equipped with chemical warheads, however, officials said they could have caused considerable casualties.

U.S. officials, by terming the firings a “test,” suggested the missiles were not production models deployed to troops in significant quantities.

In addition, they emphasized that the missiles were launched from near Basra, “rather than from where people were looking and alert to,” as one official said, “and they were not aimed in the threat direction.”

The implication is that U.S. attention was focused on two identified Iraqi missile sites, located at airfields called H-2 and H-3 in the western part of the country, where Iraq’s longer-range missiles are believed to be kept.

But Seth Carus of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who follows Mideast weapons developments, said it was “odd” that U.S. intelligence sensors were not also trained on the Basra area, from which shorter-range missiles could be fired against U.S. forces to the south.

Normally, the anticipated trajectories of hostile missiles are programmed into the sensors to alert U.S. forces automatically to any incoming weapon. Some analysts suggest that southern trajectories from Basra were programmed into the sensors, as were western trajectories from H-2 and H-3, but not westerly paths from Basra.

Another important issue, Carus said, is whether the missiles tested were a new and improved version of known Iraqi weapons. If the accuracy and payload capacity of the longer-range missiles were significantly better, the threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia and U.S.-led forces would become markedly greater.

Iraq reportedly has more than 200 missiles of four types, all of them either Soviet-made or modified versions of Soviet weapon. The four are code-named Frog, Scud-B, Hussein and Abbas.

Frogs have a range of about 50 miles, Scud-Bs about 220 miles, Husseins 400 miles and Abbases 500 miles. How many of each type Iraq has is not known, but the latter two missiles are believed to number fewer than 50.

The Hussein and Abbas are modified versions of the Scud-B, which can hit within about half a mile of its target carrying a payload of about half a ton. The Iraqi versions have much poorer characteristics; they are accurate to within only one to three miles of their aim point, according to a report by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Payloads may be as low as 300 pounds at maximum range.

This means that, if used with chemical warheads at maximum range, at least a dozen missiles would have to be fired--and at nearly the same time--to produce lethal concentrations of a nerve agent, for example.

Carus has calculated that to kill half the people in an area of about one-third of a square mile would require 28,000 pounds of the nerve agent Tabun, which the Iraqis are known to possess, if it were spread on the ground.