No White House Gloating Over Initial U.S. Military Successes : Bush: The President’s wariness about optimism seemed prescient after Israel was attacked with missiles.

As U.S. bombers and allied aircraft pounded away at targets in Iraq and Kuwait, President Bush said Thursday that “we are not going to stop” until Saddam Hussein pulls his troops out of Kuwait.

Bush, who began his day at 4:30 a.m., avoided calling for Hussein’s surrender, which the President’s spokesman had said was one way Iraq could escape further punishment. But he said the Iraqi president must pull his occupying troops out of Kuwait “with no concessions . . . no conditions.”

Around the President, there was no gloating over the military triumphs of the first day of the Persian Gulf War, even before the attack on Israel.

Indeed, Bush’s restrained comments, and his pronouncement that “there is no unwarranted optimism and there will be none,” reflected the assessment, voiced by one senior White House official, that “the air war will go on forever” before ground troops are sent into action to fight their way into Kuwait.

Bush met with congressional leaders and his Cabinet, telling the first group: “Initial reports of accomplishments and losses are good, but we need to keep this in perspective. We are just hours into this. No one should assume this conflict will be short or easy.”

His caution and warnings would seem prescient by early evening Washington time, when a fearsome scenario--that Hussein would attempt to draw Israel into the battle--came to life.

In a statement read by his press secretary, Bush expressed outrage at Baghdad’s tactics. Israeli Ambassador Zelman Shoval at a late-night press conference calmly denounced the attack, said he had been in touch with the White House, and announced that Israel “reserves the right to respond in any way it sees fit.”

Bush suggested at a news conference on Dec. 18 that he was not concerned that any Israeli retaliation would necessarily split the coalition arrayed against Israel, suggesting that some agreements had been reached between the United States and its Arab allies in such an eventuality.

Earlier Thursday, the President said he would not comment “on the ups and downs--and there will be some downs,” adding, “We are pleased with the way things have gone so far.”

Will he insist on Hussein’s unconditional surrender, he was asked during a photo session at the start of his 1 1/2-hour Cabinet meeting.

“He can call it anything he wants, interpret it any way he wants, but we are going to prevail,” Bush said. “We are using force, and we are not going to stop until he fully complies with the resolutions” adopted by the U.N. Security Council demanding Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the Administration had no plans to halt the bombing runs to wait for Hussein to change his mind about occupying Kuwait.

“If at any point he wants to change course here, all he has to do is surrender and comply with all the U.N. resolutions,” Fitzwater said. He continued:

“We would expect to follow this through to its completion. Our position is that he has had ample opportunity to resolve this. . . . He has chosen not to. He has forced this. He is the aggressor. He is the one that started this war on Aug. 2, 1990. And he can end it by laying down his arms and complying with the resolution.”

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said there were no diplomatic efforts under way to end the war.

Asked if Washington was prepared to talk to Baghdad about anything, she said, “What’s there to talk about? . . . Talk is over.”

A senior State Department official said later that the war would stop “if Saddam Hussein stands up in downtown Baghdad to say, ‘I was wrong, I’m getting out of Kuwait.’ ”

If Hussein wants to use a less humiliating way to sue for peace, Tutwiler said, he could send a message through the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. The embassy remains open although the U.S. government ordered the staff reduced to four diplomats. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is not staffed. There has been no formal break in U.S.-Iraqi diplomatic relations, and neither country has issued a declaration of war.

U.S. officials believe that if Hussein decided to capitulate, he probably would avoid direct contact with the United States by informing the United Nations or some other country of his intention.

Tutwiler said that it would be up to the anti-Iraq coalition--not just the United States--to decide if and when the fighting will stop.

Bush, who Fitzwater said went to bed at 11 p.m. Wednesday, was out of bed more than two hours before dawn. By 5 a.m., he had walked his two spaniels, Millie and Ranger, on the South Lawn of the White House and had headed over to the Oval Office.

From there, he visited the crisis-monitoring Situation Room in the White House basement for an update on the bombardment and then returned to his study, adjacent to the Oval Office, to read the reports on the overnight action, Fitzwater said.

By 5:30 a.m., he was headed back to the White House residence, with a stop in the press room, and then he returned to the Oval Office at 6:49 a.m.

At 7 a.m., he was joined by Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and Scowcroft’s deputy, Robert M. Gates, and the four of them watched early morning television news shows.

Before Secretary of State James A. Baker III joined them half an hour later, Bush called British Prime Minister John Major to talk about the progress of the war. The President was said to have had no contact with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev since the bombardment of Iraq began early Thursday morning. But the U.S. government received a “communication” from the Soviets, who have supported Bush’s policy in the gulf, that Fitzwater said “expressed regret that the situation had come to conflict.”

For a while, a Secret Service agent stationed outside the Oval Office was carrying a gas mask. Fitzwater said that some of the Secret Service personnel carried the masks--presumably for protection against tear gas--when demonstrators were protesting across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House as they were Wednesday evening.

At mid-morning, the President and First Lady Barbara Bush, along with Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife Marilyn, much of the White House senior staff and the Cabinet attended nondenominational church services at Memorial Chapel in Ft. Myer, Va., an Army post across the Potomac River from Washington.

The Rev. Billy Graham said in his sermon that the President, his Cabinet and military leaders were “facing a crisis today as great as any leaders in American history.”

The official said Bush was “doing his best to keep everybody on an even keel.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.