Allies Pound Iraqis; 2 U.S. Planes Downed

Allied warplanes raked Iraqi troops with some of the heaviest bombing of the Persian Gulf War on Saturday, scattering one unit of the elite Republican Guard and blowing up airfields, tanks and armored personnel carriers.

But the Iraqis, vowing to retaliate with everything from kitchen knives to “weapons of mass destruction,” shot down two American planes--the first in two days. They used antiaircraft fire, but U.S. officers said it came from scattered guns and was not centrally controlled.

The officers noted that the Iraqi air force offered no resistance.

At the same time, a U.S. Marine was killed and two more were wounded in another possible instance of death by “friendly fire”--apparently when their convoy was hit in Saudi Arabia by cluster bombs dropped by an American aircraft.

This instance, like the deaths last week of 11 Marines, some of whom may have been struck by a missile from a U.S. battle-support aircraft, was being investigated by American officers. In Washington, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said, “We simply do not know what precisely happened.”

In other developments:

* Iraq shot more conventionally armed Scud missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia. No major injuries were reported.

* Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the top allied commander, said he has seen reports that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is distraught and has had three doctors treating him with tranquilizers.

* A large war-caused oil slick in the Gulf hit miles of beach in Saudi Arabia but no water desalination facilities.

Taking advantage of near-perfect weather, allied bombers pelted Iraqi positions in more than 2,600 sorties--300 more than the daily average. They hit both Iraq and occupied Kuwait. The bombing seemed to throw the Iraqis somewhat into disarray, allied officers said.

“They tend to concentrate and then disperse,” reported Group Capt. Niall Irving, a British military spokesman at allied headquarters. “We do not have a clear picture of what they are planning, or what they are all about. There’s nothing to suggest that they are massing to move into Saudi Arabia.”

One reason for the disarray, said Maj. Gen. Robert Johnston, chief of staff for the U.S. Central Command, is bomb damage to Iraqi command, control and communication structures. After their four incursions into Saudi Arabia last week, he said, the Iraqis have now decided to “defend in place.”

He characterized Iraqi activity as “relatively quiet.”

At the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he could detect “no sign of enemy offensive operations.” Kelly and Rear Adm. John (Mike) McConnell, director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs, said Iraqi troops appeared to be “hunkered down” again in the desert.

“They came out (last week), they suffered damage, and they’ve gone back in,” McConnell said. “And I think they are reassessing how to determine where they are and what they might do next.”

In addition, Kelly said, allied attacks have now rendered the Iraqi navy “totally ineffective.” Although the Iraqi fleet consisted mostly of small patrol boats, some might have been capable of launching missiles against U.S. ships in the Gulf.

It was clear too, Capt. Irving said, that allied air strikes were taking a toll on the Republican Guard--top-flight Iraqi fighters entrenched in northern Kuwait and southern Iraq.

After Saturday’s bombing, Irving declared, movements by the Republican Guard did not appear to be “particularly well coordinated.”

They seemed scrambled, he said, and their command and control was “not too hot.”

There was no sign of actual collapse among the guard, Irving said, or any evidence that they were in retreat.

But Gen. Johnston said the bombing attack on the Republican Guard “scattered about 300 vehicles.”

In addition, he said, the allies counted “fairly substantial kills in both APC (armored personnel carriers) and tanks.”

Planes Down

Still, the Iraqis were not without reply.

They offered antiaircraft fire that shot down two American jets, an A-6 Intruder and an A-10 Thunderbolt.

Johnston declined to say how many were aboard the planes or where they had been shot down. Such information, he said, would aid the Iraqis in countering search-and-rescue operations that were under way.

The A-10 is used for close support, especially during attacks against tanks. It is generally known to carry a one-person crew. The A-6 is a low-level bomber. It is generally known to carry a crew of two.

The losses bring to 15 the number of U.S. planes downed in combat.

In Washington, Gen. Kelly said the A-6 and A-10 had been shot down by “optical” antiaircraft artillery. This meant, he said, that the gunner was targeting the aircraft individually--and that the fire was not part of any coordinated effort being mounted by the Iraqi command.

The Iraqis also made two small probing attacks across the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, one north of Khafji and the other farther west.

At Khafji, five Iraqi tanks moved south. Four were destroyed by tanks from the Gulf emirate of Qatar, and the fifth was damaged as it fled. In the incursion farther west, about 25 Iraqis and two light armored vehicles moved south as well. They were met by soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, who exchanged fire with them at 300 yards.

The fight lasted 15 minutes before the Iraqis fled, officers said. They added there were no American casualties.

Finally, the Iraqis offered threats.

“We will use whatever power and weapons are at our disposal, starting from kitchen knives to weapons of mass destruction,” said a front-page editorial in an Iraqi army newspaper published in Baghdad. The newspaper was seen in Amman, Jordan.

It was viewed by analysts as a clear message that President Hussein will stop at nothing to win the war.

Friendly Fire?

In the newest apparent incident of death by friendly fire, a Marine convoy in Saudi Arabia was hit by munitions from a cluster bomb.

“The cluster bombs we’re talking about were far enough removed from the front lines that one would make a stronger conclusion it was in fact friendly fire,” Gen. Johnston said. But he said military investigators will try to make a more certain determination of what had happened.

The incident happened early Saturday morning, Johnston said. The dead Marine’s identity was withheld pending notification of kin.

In an interview on the Cable News Network, Secretary of Defense Cheney called it “one of those situations that unfortunately happens in warfare.

“Work is under way to try to find out what happened,” he said. “There are cases where we never know for certain. . . .”

At the Pentagon, Gen. Kelly said investigations into this new incident and the deaths of the 11 Marines last week in the first ground engagement of the war will yield results “very soon.”

But Kelly said that one reason for the possibility of these friendly-fire deaths may be the stress and confusion of combat.

“Whenever you start in combat, the first couple of engagements, at least in my experience, my personal experience, they’re always a little bit difficult,” Kelly said, “because you just can’t replicate combat outside of combat.”

Scud Attacks

The Iraqi Scud attacks were the first in several days.

Two of the missiles hit Israel, the first Saturday night and the second early today, both in the central area--which includes the occupied West Bank.

There were no reports of injuries, damage or poison gas, but Israelis were briefly ordered to put on gas masks and enter sealed rooms in their houses.

Reporters in Tel Aviv, accustomed to the sound of Patriot interceptors being fired, said they heard no such noise Saturday. And Israeli Brig. Gen. Nachman Shai, who reported Saturday’s attack, mentioned no Patriot counterattack.

In Saudi Arabia, a Patriot interceptor destroyed the Iraqi Scud aimed at Riyadh early today. Witnesses said that at least two Patriots were fired. Debris from the one that found its mark rained down on a residential area. Police said it slightly injured 29 people and damaged apartment buildings.

Missile alert sirens sounded in Riyadh and the coastal city of Dhahran at 12:55 a.m. and then again a short time later in Riyadh. But no Patriots were fired during the second alert, apparently meaning that any additional Scuds fell in uninhabited areas.

The two most recent Scuds that had hit Israel fell on Monday and Thursday, and the most recent Scud attack in Saudi Arabia was also Monday.

Hussein Tranquilized?

The reports that President Hussein is being tranquilized were mentioned in a transcript of an interview granted to U.S. News & World Report by Gen. Schwarzkopf, chief of the U.S. Central Command. The transcript was made public by his office.

In the interview, Schwarzkopf said Hussein is “totally indifferent to the suffering that his decisions inflict on his country” because he “considers himself a man of destiny . . . predetermined in some way. . . .

“Once he has made the decision to go to war . . . really from (that) time frame, as far as Saddam is concerned, the die is cast,” Schwarzkopf said. “What he is doing now is continuing down the path that he feels he has predetermined for himself by making that decision.

“I would also tell you,” Schwarzkopf added, “and this is anecdotal in nature, that we have several reports (from) some time ago that Saddam is a very distraught man--that he has three doctors treating him with tranquilizers, which may say something about his mental state, also.”

The general did not elaborate, and his office offered no further explanation of his remarks.

Oil Slick

As the fighting rolled across the land, history’s largest oil slick oozed across the water of the Persian Gulf, hitting the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia.

It polluted miles of sandy beach, but a southerly wind held it away from Jubayl and its desalination plant, which produces 30 million gallons of fresh water a day for Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and for other Saudi cities.

The slick appeared to be 100 miles long. Allied forces say Iraq caused it deliberately by dumping an estimated 11 million barrels of crude oil from storage tanks and ships at Kuwait’s Al Ahmadi terminal. U.S. planes bombed the terminal a week ago to destroy pump controls and staunch the flow.

Executions Denied

At the Pentagon, Adm. McConnell, the director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs, said two of Hussein’s top commanders, reported to have been executed in recent days because of heavy Iraqi losses, have in fact been seen alive and apparently well in Baghdad.

The reports of their execution came last week from the independent Soviet news agency Interfax, which said the commanders were in charge of Hussein’s air force and his antiaircraft defense system.

Kennedy reported from Riyadh and Murphy from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Mark Fineman in Amman, Jordan, and John Broder and Melissa Healy in Washington.

CLUSTER BOMBING A U.S. Marine was killed Saturday, perhaps by allied fire. The death occurred when a Marine convoy apparently was hit by cluster bombs. BACKGROUND:

* Cluster bombs--which are one type of fragmentation weapons--are groups of little bomblets or darts that are packed into a larger bomb, similar to shotgun pellets.

* Such bombs can be delivered by medium-range fighter-bombers such as the A-6, A-10, F/A-18 and F-16.

* Cluster weapons are intended to knock out tanks and military equipment, and, in military parlance, also are considered “anti-personnel weapons.” As such, they are not designed to be used near civilian populations or on enemy troops in close combat with “friendly forces,” since the bomblets do not distinguish targets.

HOW THEY WORK:

1--Some early cluster bombs were intended for use against thin-skinned military equipment such as radar vans and trucks. In general, these were dropped from airplanes in metal containers resembling clam shells.

2--At a given altitude, the container opens and hundreds of metal bomblets fall out, become activated by spinning and explode on impact. Others may have time-delayed fuses, causing them to explode in random fashion within minutes of hitting a target.

* Another type of cluster bomb, the Rockeye, is designed to knock out tanks and other heavily armored vehicles. The Rockeye is released from an airplane in a one-piece canister, which splits in flight and scatters hundreds of dart-like bomblets, designed to penetrate armor resulting in an explosion.

* Newer kinds of cluster bombs, called combined effects munitions, are designed to allow a single weapon to cover a fuller spectrum of targets. The multiple bomblets can destroy both light and heavily armored targets.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, Ordnance & Munitions Forecast, Washington Post