Land War Timing Up to Military, Bush Says : Desert Storm: A ground assault may be unavoidable, the President declares. He will send Cheney and Powell to the Gulf for a status report.

President Bush, declaring that a costly ground war may be unavoidable, said Tuesday he will rely solely on his military advisers in deciding any timetable for an assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces by U.S. and allied troops in Saudi Arabia.

Bush said he is dispatching Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Saudi Arabia this week for a “firsthand status report” on the war and recommendations concerning a possible ground attack.

With Pentagon officials broadly agreeing that they will recommend a go-ahead for such an attack when the current air bombardment has destroyed 50% of Iraq’s armored vehicles, some analysts now expect a ground war to begin within 10 or 20 days.

At that level of destruction, military analysts believe, Iraq’s forces would be plunged into such chaos that they would no longer be able to function as an effective fighting force.

Brushing aside mounting congressional pressure to extend the air war to help minimize allied casualties, Bush said his decision will not be influenced by political opposition at home, anti-American sentiment in Arab countries or provocative actions by Iraq.

“Saddam Hussein will not set the timing for what comes next; we will do that,” he told a press conference, raising his fist several times and speaking in blunt terms about U.S. military objectives and determination to prevail.

“And I will have to make that decision if we go to ground forces,” he continued. “And I will do it upon serious consideration of the recommendations of our military,” including Cheney, Powell and commanders in the field.

Bush also flatly ruled out any prospect that he might reinstate the draft. “I’ve heard no discussion from any of our people about the need to reinstate the draft,” he said. “We have an all-volunteer Army that is totally capable of getting this job done.”

In deciding the timetable for any ground assault, the President must worry about the potential for heavy casualties among allied forces if he moves too soon and about the possibility that the international anti-Iraq coalition will unravel if he delays too long.

Bush emphasized repeatedly, however, that in making his decision he will rely on advice from the military--Cheney, Powell and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf.

He said the trip by Cheney and Powell to Saudi Arabia to meet with Schwarzkopf and his staff will be a short one, and the two officials will return quickly to meet with Bush and his senior staff.

A reporter, pointing out that Schwarzkopf had spoken in an interview of the burden he felt in ordering troops into combat, asked if Bush as commander in chief had “a nagging concern here that might lead you to extend the air war longer before committing land troops?”

Bush said he would not go against sound military doctrine “in order to just delay for the sake of delay, hoping that it would save lives.”

Bush said he felt no “loneliness at the top” in having to make such a fateful decision. “My own feeling is, I know what I’ve got to do,” he said. “I’ve got very good people helping me do it. I really don’t lose sleep. I can’t tell you I don’t shed a tear for . . . families of those that might be lost in combat. We have had very few losses, and yet I’ve got to tell you, I feel each one. But we are going to continue this, and we are going to prevail.”

He said he feels “rather calm” as he approaches the decision “because we have a game plan and we’ve stayed with the game plan and we are on target.”

Commenting on congressional concern that an early decision to launch a ground attack would increase U.S. casualties, Bush said military strategists should determine the course of action.

The President recalled that some critics had also urged that he rely solely on economic sanctions against Iraq instead of ordering the Jan. 17 attack.

“There was the same feeling: Please let the sanctions work,” he said. “I mean, I can understand the feeling on the Hill. I can understand those who say let air power do it alone. But I’m going to make these calls. These are . . . the responsibilities of the commander in chief.”

Earlier, Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Cheney and Powell had assured him that despite increasing congressional opposition to an early ground war, “the timing of a decision on a ground war will be predicated only on military factors and not any political considerations.”

Several Republicans have joined Democrats in Congress in pressing for a delay in a ground war to give the air attacks more time to weaken Hussein’s forces.

In an interview with Kansas reporters, Senate GOP Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said: “Let’s continue to hammer ‘em with air power. Let’s not be eager to commit ground forces. We saw what happened when the Marines’ 2nd Division had the skirmish (at Khafji).

“We lost 11 Marines, as much as we lost the two weeks before using air power, and we just ought to pulverize the military targets and keep hammering and hammering and hammering at military targets in Iraq, softening up the army and ground forces of Iraq before we commit one American.”

Sen. William S. Cohen of Maine, a senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, warned that a ground war could cause thousands of casualties and urged that any ground attack be delayed for at least several months.

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a strong proponent of the military attack on Iraq, urged that the air bombardment continue without a ground attack indefinitely.

“The clear predominant view of congressmen when you talk to them, is, let’s just take the bombing campaign as long as we can,” Aspin said.

Defense Secretary Cheney said the United States and its allies will not initiate a ground war “until we’ve taken maximum advantage of our capability to use our air power. . . . There is no drop-dead date, if you will, by which we feel we have to act.”

But several military officers argue that if Iraqi ground forces will not give up at the 50% destruction level, a continued air war is likely merely to cause greater destruction in Iraq without persuading the Iraqis to surrender.

“You have to think about the law of diminishing returns,” a Pentagon official said. “There’s a point at which you have to ask, how many ‘smart’ bombs do you have left to shoot from planes, and what’s left to shoot at?”

Also, several senior Pentagon officials said further aerial pounding could cast the United States as an unrelenting bully against a smaller country, harming long-term U.S. interests in the region more than it would reduce U.S. casualties.

At his press conference Tuesday, Bush said the warto drive Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait is “going very well indeed.”

He said he would resist predicting when it will end, but added: “I don’t believe it’s going to be long and drawn out. And it is going as we planned, it is going on schedule, it is going very well.”

Asked whether he is concerned that continuing the aerial bombardment against virtually defenseless Iraqi troops could cause tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties, Bush said: “Let me be very clear--what concerns me are the lives of our troops. What concerns me are the lives of our coalition forces--the Saudi and Qatar forces that went into Khafji very courageously.”

Bush said Hussein should be concerned about Iraqi forces, but “you have to wonder how he feels about that” when he sends up his planes in a “totally one-sided” fight with U.S. and allied planes.

He also charged that Hussein has gassed the Kurds in Iraq, ordered Scud missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia, “brutally” paraded prisoners of war and launched environmental terrorism. Bush said neither he nor his coalition partners can “figure out what he’s thinking.”

The President, indicating he believes Iraqi forces would be overpowered in a ground war, said the enemy was “obliterated” at Khafji, which he termed “the one serious engagement on the ground.”

Iraqi forces captured the lightly defended Saudi town but later were driven out by U.S. and allied forces, mostly Saudi troops.

Bush also poured cold water on reports that Iranian officials have drafted a peace proposal that would provide for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait and leave Hussein as Iraq’s president.

No such proposal has been conveyed to the United States, he said, and besides, “there’s nothing to negotiate about, there’s nothing to be conciliatory about when you have a person who is steadfast in his refusal to comply with the fundamental purpose, and that is to get him out of Kuwait.”

Bush said the United States is going to “unprecedented lengths” to avoid damage to civilians and holy places in bombing targets in Iraq and Kuwait. He also said the United States does not seek Iraq’s destruction. And he denied that the allies’ objective is to destroy Iraq’s infrastructure.

The Administration’s own military briefers have outlined numerous instances of destruction of bridges, communications centers and other elements of Iraq’s infrastructure.

Times staff writers Melissa Healy and Paul Houston contributed to this report.