Iraqi Pullout Could Increase Gulf Instability

The possibility that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might voluntarily withdraw from Kuwait and eliminate the need for a bloody ground war--a prospect raised by the Soviet Union’s 11th-hour, weekend peace initiative--sent an understandable surge of hope through millions of Americans.

But an Iraqi withdrawal that permits Hussein to survive as head of a still-powerful military machine could leave the United States and its allies with a more difficult, even more volatile situation in the Persian Gulf than it faced before the war began, according to U.S. officials, foreign envoys and Middle East specialists.

While Baghdad’s agreement to withdraw unconditionally before a ground war starts would probably spare hundreds, even thousands of lives, a settlement of the kind being pressed by the Soviet Union and Iran could be even more costly in the long run.

“There’s absolutely no question that Saddam’s survival would make this incredibly messy, from a security standpoint, from a political standpoint, from virtually every standpoint you look at,” said a leading U.S. military analyst. “Many of the nascent plans for the postwar Middle East presumed tacitly that we’d be dealing with a different government in Baghdad, maybe still Baathist, but not led by Saddam.”

In this view, permitting Hussein to remain in power with significant parts of his military apparatus intact could leave the door open to potentially endless future problems--including overt or covert aggression against his vulnerable but strategically vital neighbors.

Such fears are not limited to the Bush Administration. All of the mainstream European and Arab members of the coalition share the view that the survival of a well-armed government, led by Hussein, would be a destabilizing force for years to come--its potential for stirring trouble inhibited only by the serious economic problems it will face as a result of allied bombing.

“If they get a withdrawal, the Bush Administration will be very embarrassed,” said a ranking European envoy, discussing the flurry of diplomatic activity triggered by Moscow’s peace initiative over the past weekend. “If Saddam is still in power, it will be a very strange victory” for the coalition, he said.

Riad Ajami, a political economist with intimate knowledge of Iraq, agreed: “Saddam has a longer view of history than others believe. . . . He believes that he can survive today and come back another day, with more resources and more opportunities.”

Ironically, the problem that the Soviet proposal poses for the allies is that it holds out the promise of fulfilling the key goal that has held the coalition together: Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. While the leaders of many states in the coalition, including the Arab states, would like to see Hussein removed from power, his ouster was never explicitly demanded in the U.N. resolutions. Attempting to make it part of the allied plan now, at the risk of prolonging the conflict, could be politically divisive.

Indeed, President Bush’s cool reaction to the secret Soviet peace plan in public comments Tuesday apparently reflected increasing fears in his Administration that Hussein could re-emerge as a threatening powerhouse in the region and that the expensive international response to his invasion of Kuwait would have been virtually for naught.

Analysts cited these elements in the potential for an Iraqi resurgence:

* Five weeks of relentless air assaults have destroyed more than 1,400 Iraqi tanks and killed untold numbers of troops, but the surviving remnant makes up an army that is still larger and better equipped than those in almost all of Iraq’s neighbor nations.

* The massive destruction rained down on Iraq by allied bombers may have weakened the Iraqi leadership, but Hussein’s masterful manipulation of internal politics, his total control of the media and the absence of a cohesive opposition force to challenge him could keep him in power--perhaps indefinitely.

* Most of the coalition’s official objectives would have been achieved under the Soviet peace formula, but the survival of the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party regime with a powerful military machine would almost certainly mean a prolonged, expensive--and potentially controversial--U.S. presence in the Gulf.

* The Gulf crisis has spawned a new triad of power in the Arab world, centered on Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. But “Saddam-ism,” the appeal to Palestinians and the region’s dispossessed, could remain a radical political influence throughout the Middle East.

* Iraq would, officially, have lost the war and Kuwait, but Saddam could try to undermine the conservative Gulf sheikdoms and sabotage U.S. and coalition efforts to create regional stability through dirty tricks, sabotage, propaganda and terrorism.

Asked what capabilities the Iraqis would retain if the war ended today, Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday: “It depends on what he gets back after this conflict is over, relative to the other states of the area. If he got everything out that he still has in the ballgame, he would still be a very powerful military force.”

Ironically, the biggest constraint on Baghdad, if the fighting ends now, will be its crippled economy, experts said. The combination of seven months of trade sanctions and the bombardment of the nation’s infrastructure will limit Iraq’s ability to produce oil, and, in turn, its capacity to rebuild. In the short-term, Iraq may even have to import refined oil.

“When he initiated this adventure, Saddam had spent 10 years building an infrastructure to support a massive military force. Now his economic and support base is much reduced and it will take a long time and a lot of money from abroad to rebuild and to support the military force he had,” said James Placke, a former U.S. envoy in Baghdad.

Before the Kuwait invasion, Iraq produced 3.4 million barrels of oil a day, which earned $14 billion in 1989, the last full year of production. After seven months of sanctions, Iraq has lost an estimated $8 billion, financially crippling a country in which oil is the only major source of foreign exchange.

The allied bombardment has struck oil installations, including refineries for domestic consumption, according to the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. “After the war ends, Iraq will need to find refined imports for at least six to 12 months,” said PIRF’s John Lichtblau.

The condition of Iraq’s four systems for exporting petroleum is also in doubt. The pipeline through Syria was cut off by Damascus for political reasons almost a decade ago. A second line through Iraq’s Faw Peninsula will take months of repair.

Baghdad’s ability to use a third pipeline through Saudi Arabia may depend on the kingdom’s political will and could be tied to reparations or a host of other disputed issues. The only pipeline that Iraq may have immediate access to runs through Turkey, which needs the income.

Iraq also owes an estimated $40 billion to countries ranging from the Soviet Union to Poland and Jordan as a result of its earlier, eight-year war with Iran.

“Saddam is vulnerable in three respects,” said Placke. “He cannot immediately or fully . . . get back up to Iraq’s oil-export potential, which he needs for foreign exchange. He’s vulnerable because of indebtedness, from the past and from this war. And he’s also vulnerable to export controls.

“If the world were to put its mind to it in a concerted way, given the financial leverage, it would be possible to constrain Iraq for a long time to come.”

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, after briefings in Riyadh 10 days ago, concluded that Iraq’s ability to threaten its neighbors had been knocked out “for a good long time.” And a senior Defense Department official said any peace agreement concluded before a ground war would have to include substantial economic and military sanctions that would prevent Iraq from building up its forces again.

“If they sit on the border with large armored forces, even though they’re out of Kuwait, that’s a serious problem about which something’s got to be done,” the official added.

“There’s still a lot of leverage over Iraq. If they get out of Kuwait but maintain a threatening posture against Kuwait, the war isn’t going to continue, but there will likely be sanctions . . . there are a lot of instruments at our disposal,” he said.

At the same time, the official said “it will be much easier if Saddam Hussein’s not around, much easier to imagine that kind of stable arrangement in the world where people are actually cooperating with Iraq in its own reconstruction, which would be more difficult with Hussein there.”

And many analysts are skeptical about long-term prospects for sustaining effective sanctions against Iraq once the war ends.

If the conflict stopped right now, and Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait were forced to abandon their tanks and other military hardware there, as the Administration has suggested they would be compelled to do, Iraq could still salvage a force of as many as 2,000 tanks, many of them older T-54s and T-55s.

That would be many fewer than Syria’s 4,300 or Israel’s 4,000 tanks, but it would still outgun Iran’s 1,000 tanks or Saudi Arabia’s 550. And about 150 of Iraq’s most sophisticated Soviet- and French-made fighters and bombers, as well as its civilian aircraft, are sitting out the war at Iranian airfields.

Many U.S. officials and private analysts believe Iraq will be in no position to launch another aggression in the near future, but the danger may not be limited to a formal military campaign.

“Even though Iraq will be more flattened and crushed, it will still have some capabilities in the field of politics, dirty tricks and subversion,” said Michael Hudson of Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

The most obvious targets are members of the 28-nation coalition, especially the United States. “He’s got scores to settle with most of the world’s major and middle powers,” the military analyst said.

Conceded a U.S. official, “A cease-fire with Saddam still around may end the formal fighting, but it may not be an end to the war.”

Times staff writers John M. Broder and Melissa Healy contributed to this story.