Allies Drive Iraqis From Saudi Town and Take 167 Prisoners : Gulf War: Bush says he is not yet ready to deploy U.S. forces in a ground offensive. Hussein is rumored to be massing 60,000 troops for a second, massive assault.

Saddam Hussein’s troops took a severe beating as forces from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States drove them from the Saudi town of Khafji, the allied military command said Thursday, adding that a rumored second ground assault by Iraqi soldiers would only lead them “into harm’s way in a major way.”

Army Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly theorized that Hussein’s ground attack on Khafji was an attempt “to draw us into something that we don’t want to be drawn into right now.” President Bush said Thursday that he is not yet ready to deploy U.S. troops in ground combat to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

The Pentagon would not comment on unconfirmed reports by allied troops and Iraqi radio that as many as 60,000 of Hussein’s troops were massing near the Saudi border for a second, massive ground attack.

In repulsing the Iraqi incursion on Khafji late Wednesday and early Thursday, allied forces took 167 prisoners of war, destroyed 42 tanks and 35 other vehicles and killed an undetermined number of enemy troops during the battle, the Pentagon said.

“The Iraqis achieved nothing other than to be mauled badly,” Kelly said. “When you take 167 prisoners, they didn’t fight too hard.”

In other developments:

Two U.S. soldiers declared missing during the battle for Khafji were found, but the Pentagon would not comment about two other U.S. soldiers--a man and a woman--still missing near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, saying only that a search was being conducted for them.

A four-engine U.S. AC-130 plane armed with cannons was reported missing behind enemy lines.

Iraq fired another Scud missile at Israel, but for the second time this week the missile fell short and hit the occupied West Bank. There were no reports of injury or damage.

American B-52 bombers are using an air base in Spain to launch raids over Iraq, according to Spanish radio.

Germany is dispatching a team of experts and tons of specialized equipment to Qatar to help fight the huge Persian Gulf oil slicks, German officials said. The five specialists and 30 tons of gear are scheduled to leave Germany by plane today. The allies say Iraq has been deliberately dumping oil into the Gulf; Iraq blames the slicks on allied raids on its tankers and pipelines.

The government of Iran told Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Sadoun Hammadi, that Tehran will hold Iraqi pilots--as well as the the planes they have flown to Iran--until the end of the Persian Gulf War, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, meeting Hammadi in the Iranian capital, also expressed displeasure that the Iraqi planes--98 aircraft, according to allied officials--had landed without permission.

The Ground Battles

After 36 hours of fighting that marked the first major ground battle of the Persian Gulf War, allied forces announced the recapture of Khafji.

The allied military command in Riyadh said the border town had been captured by the Iraqis late Tuesday night by merely driving into and taking control of the abandoned village.

“I wouldn’t consider it much of an attack at all, quite frankly,” Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the allied forces, said. “If that’s the best they have to offer, then it’s going to be a very long, tough war for them.”

Although saying the Iraqi attack was “about as important as a mosquito on an elephant” militarily, Schwarzkopf acknowledged that the ability of Hussein’s army to mount a coordinated cross-border incursion had a political impact.

“I think that’s why the Saudis are paying so much attention to it,” he said. “Because politically, of course, nobody likes to think of his sovereign soil being attacked by anyone, or seized by anyone.”

Army Brig. Gen. Pat Stevens IV said Khafji was retaken when Saudi forces, assisted by troops from Qatar and U.S. Marine attack helicopters, overwhelmed the Iraqi forces.

While the U.S. military said 167 Iraqis were taken prisoner, Saudi officials put the figure at more than 400. The Saudis said that about 200 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 46 Iraqi vehicles were knocked out of action. The officials said Saudi Arabia suffered four dead, eight wounded and the losses of two tanks and six other vehicles.

The battle for Khafji was part of what Stevens described as a “reconnaissance in force” by Iraq on three fronts along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. He said the Iraqi troops were attempting to engage the allied troops in combat to probe for possible weaknesses. Iraqi forces were thrown back across the border in every instance, he added.

While Kelly said in Washington that the Iraqi ground attacks may have been an attempt by Hussein to dictate the tactics of the war, Shoshana Cardin, chairwoman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Bush told her group Thursday that “he is not anxious at this point to enter into a ground war. . . .

“I think he feels there is more to be done (in the air war) before beginning a major ground attack,” she said.

Cardin spoke with reporters after conference members met for an hour with Bush at the White House.

“The President said that the war is on target, the schedule is being met, they are achieving their objectives,” Cardin said. “He is very pleased with what is being done.”

Kelly said the Iraqi offensive on Khafji may have been an attempt by Hussein to improve the morale of his troops but that if it was, it failed. He described the heavy losses the Iraqis suffered in the fight for the border town as “the payoff they got for driving down the road to Khafji.”

Kelly said that four Iraqi battalions of about 500 men each had been involved in the attacks and that the four units had been rendered “utterly ineffective” by the combat.

The lost Iraqi tanks were mostly Soviet-made T-62s and T-55s that were destroyed by air and rocket fire, Pentagon officials said.

“Things are going our way,” Kelly said. “I think that is really upsetting our principal adversary, Mr. What’s-His-Name, Hussein.”

A battle Tuesday night resulted in the first American ground casualties of the war.

Stevens said 11 Marines died in a fierce firefight about 15 miles west of Khafji. Two light armored vehicles were lost in the same fighting, but it was unclear whether the Marines who were killed were in those vehicles.

Rumored Offensive

The allied command refused to confirm or deny persistent rumors that Iraq was preparing for another ground offensive near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.

Iraq’s official news agency broadcast reports that the incursions in the Khafji area were merely “the beginning of a thunderous storm blowing on the Arab desert.”

U.S. Marines near Khafji spoke of unconfirmed reports that there were five or six Iraqi divisions--as many as 60,000 soldiers--massing near the Kuwaiti town of Wafra, about 35 miles west-northwest of Khafji.

As many as 1,000 Iraqi military vehicles were moving through southern Kuwait toward the Saudi border Thursday, according to a U.S. squadron commander.

Marine Lt. Col. Dick (Snake) White, commander of a group of Harrier jump jets, said his information was based on intelligence reports and sightings by other pilots.

“There is no sign of the Iraqis retreating, vehicles are still heading south,” he told reporters. White said it was difficult to have a clear picture of the situation because “the nature of the battlefield changes on an hourly basis.”

He said another Harrier pilot flying minutes ahead of him reported dropping 720-pound Rockeye cluster bombs on six tanks moving southeast along the border in the direction of Khafji. White said there were almost too many targets to choose from.

“It’s almost like you flipped on the light in the kitchen at night and the cockroaches start scurrying, and we’re killing them,” he said. “It’s exactly what we’ve been looking for. It sounds to me like he (Hussein) lost his marbles.”

White said he flew in the same area Wednesday and found 20 to 25 vehicles parked “bumper to bumper” beside a road. “If Saddam wants to bring these tanks out and line them up on the road, bumper to bumper . . . that’s fine with us. . . . It’s going to be a turkey shoot,” he said.

Schwarzkopf said that in an effort to avoid becoming such easy targets, a number of small Iraqi patrol boats had attempted to seek refuge in Iranian territorial waters and several had been damaged or sunk.

“So now it looks like not only their air force but their navy is being told to get out of the war completely,” he said.

Search for Soldiers

Two soldiers who had been missing since early in the battle for Khafji were found, military officials said. The soldiers’ identities and physical condition were not revealed.

Officials said the pair had been driving in a Humvee vehicle in Khafji on Wednesday when they took a wrong turn and came under Iraqi fire. Moments later, a Marine patrol found the vehicle where it had crashed into a wall, its wheels still spinning. Though some of the soldiers’ equipment was still in the vehicle, both men were missing.

The officials declined to comment on how, when and where the pair were subsequently found.

The Pentagon said it could not comment about the still-missing man and woman soldiers because it would be inappropriate to say anything while a search for them is under way.

Stevens did say that the soldiers were not involved in the Khafji fighting and at last report had been driving on the Tapline Road. “The soldiers were from a transportation battalion,” he said. “They were not involved in the fighting at Al Khafji or elsewhere along the border.”

The Tapline Road runs the breadth of Saudi Arabia, ranging from 25 to 75 miles south of the Saudi-Iraqi border.

The disappearance of the woman soldier coincided with a communique from Baghdad, read on Iraqi Radio, saying that a “number of male and female U.S. conscripts were captured along with others from the forces who are allied with them in evil.”

The communique went on to say that the women “will be given good treatment in accordance with the spirit of lofty Islamic laws.”

The Missing Plane

As the total number of allied air attacks mounted, officials in Washington said that an AC-130, with a crew of 14 and armed with cannons, had been shot down over Kuwait and that rescue efforts were under way.

Although the Pentagon announced a new policy of not disclosing aircraft losses until search efforts are exhausted, members of Congress were briefed about the downing of the AC-130 while search teams were still looking for the wreckage and possible survivors.

No details could be learned about how the plane was brought down or whether there were survivors. The plane was only the second allied aircraft lost in the past five days.

In South Carolina, Skip Toler, a resident of Columbia, told the Associated Press that his brother-in-law, Capt. Dixon Lee Walters, 30, was reported missing in action Thursday morning by the Pentagon. The Pentagon told the family that Walters’ plane had been shot down behind enemy lines, Toler said.

He said Walters had been a weapons officer for several years aboard a modified C-130 aircraft.

The AC-130 Spectre is a modified version of the four-engine C-130 transport, equipped with 20-millimeter and 40-millimeter high-speed cannons and a 105-millimeter howitzer similar to the main gun on a tank. The AC-130 is flown by Air Force special operations crews and is capable of laying down a devastating field of fire over a large area.

Like its precursor, a C-47 known as “Puff the Magic Dragon” during its service in Vietnam, the AC-130 gunship is used against troop concentrations and supply depots. The lumbering transport generally flies at an altitude of about 7,000 feet in lazy circles as it saturates the ground with cannon fire.

The plane is vulnerable to ground fire and is generally not used over a heavily defended battlefield. Though military commanders declared this week that the United States has achieved “air supremacy” over Kuwait and Iraq, the Iraqi forces still have the ability to put up antiaircraft fire from the ground.

The allies flew more than 2,600 sorties Thursday and continued to unload tons of explosives on Iraqi airfields, highways and personnel--especially the elite Republican Guard troops, which U.S. officials said were hit with more than 350 tactical fighter strikes and 10 B-52 bombing runs.

Gen. Raymond Germanos, spokesman for the French armed forces, said French Mirage F-1s and Jaguars carried out two raids Thursday in southern Iraq near the Kuwait border, striking mainly Republican Guard artillery elements and dug-in command posts.

British Wing Commander Ray Horwood, deputy commander of British forces at a Persian Gulf air base, said RAF Tornado bombers struck an Iraqi commando camp at a location he declined to specify, and other Jaguars hit artillery emplacements.

In Rome, an Italian Defense Ministry spokesman said Italian fighter-bombers joined in another allied attack on Iraqi positions Thursday. He refused to give details.

British authorities in London said that their forces had sunk five Iraqi naval craft and left four others beached.

In a daylong series of attacks, Royal Navy Lynx helicopters and U.S. F-18 and A-6 aircraft pounded the Iraqi naval craft, a pool report said.

In Washington, Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted as saying it would take “a while” to complete the allied air bombardment.

“We’re going to keep the bombardment going until we have maximized to the Nth degree everything we can do from the air,” Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) quoted the general as telling him.

Another Missile Attack

The Israeli army reported no injuries or damage from the Iraqi Scud missile that landed on the West Bank near the Green Line border with Israel proper. The army said the missile, like all those fired previously by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, carried a conventional explosive warhead.

Palestinians in the West Bank area, which was captured from Jordan and has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East War, tend to support Hussein.

Thursday’s was the eighth Iraqi missile attack on Israel since the Gulf War began and the second consecutive attack in which a Scud apparently fell short of its intended target and landed on the West Bank.

B-52s in Europe

According to Spanish radio broadcasts monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., American B-52s are taking off from the Moron de la Frontera air base in the southern Spanish province of Seville, dropping their bomb loads on Iraq and then flying on to a U.S. air base in the Pacific.

“From there, other B-52 planes ready with another load of bombs cover the same route in the other direction,” the broadcast said.

B-52s have a range of more than 6,500 miles and that range can be extended by aerial refueling.

The long-distance missions are said to be necessary because allied air bases in the Gulf region have been overtaxed by the deployment of more than 2,000 aircraft. B-52s require unusually long runways, large hangars and considerable ramp space.

The big planes, each of which can deliver more explosives than a salvo from a battleship, are being used to drop massive loads of conventional bombs on Iraqi troop emplacements.

Times staff writer Daniel Williams in Jerusalem contributed to this article.

BOMB INTENSITY

In his assessment of the first two weeks of war, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf listed “carpet bombing” -- blanket bombing in designated areas -- by B-52 aircraft of Iraq’s dug-in Republican Guards. How intense is the bombing?

TONNAGE. On Jan. 26-27, Schwarzkopf said, B-52s dropped 455 tons of explosives on the elite Iraqi troops. The next two days, 315 and 470 tons of bombs were dropped, or 1,240 tons in three days. COMPARISONS

EARTHQUAKES. The energy released by an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 is equivalent to that of 200 tons of explosive. The energy of a 5.5 quake is equivalent to 1,000 tons.

WORLD WAR II. In all of 1942, the Allies dropped 6,000 tons of bombs in Europe. In the first half of 1945, that rose to 445,000 tons.

THE ATOM BOMB dropped over Hiroshima released energy equivalent to 20,000 tons of explosive.

As the general pointed out, “That’s not to mention the other strikes that we’re doing with F-16s, F-15Es. . . .”