Moscow Efforts Bought Some Time for Hussein : Diplomacy: Allied sources say Hussein put off a ground war that was ‘ready to go’ by sending Aziz to the Soviet Union.

Iraq’s shuttle diplomacy between Baghdad and Moscow bought time for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and delayed a ground war that the allies might have launched last Tuesday or Wednesday, allied intelligence sources said Saturday.

One source, with access to Saudi policy-makers but not to the highest levels of the U.S. Central Command, said: “Everything was set for last Tuesday, as far as we can tell. It was ready to go on three hours’ notice.”

But Hussein, who knowledgeable intelligence authorities said has been stunned by the ferocity of the allied air campaign, tried to preempt a ground attack by announcing a willingness last week to withdraw from Kuwait--with many conditions attached--then by sending his foreign minister, Tarik Aziz, to Moscow on Monday. In private, Hussein has accused his onetime Soviet allies of failing to warn him just how violent and intense the war against him would be.

Arab sources said President Bush’s ultimatum to Iraq, delivered on Friday after close coordination with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, was designed to make the conditions for unconditional withdrawal so tough that Hussein could not meet them, short of virtual surrender.

The allies’ intention, they said, was to ensure that Hussein and his ruling Baath Party clique do not survive--politically at least. Hussein is described by sources with access to Baghdad as being mentally competent. But he has undergone a severe weight loss and is said to be extremely nervous.

Throughout the day Friday, Bush and Fahd stayed in constant touch via classified fax transmissions and wrote the ultimatum together that Bush delivered at the White House. Translators here worked Bush’s drafts into Arabic for Fahd, then back into English for transmission to the White House after the king had made his changes.

Saudi Arabia, once the most dovish of countries, has become the leading hawk, privately, in demanding that, if Saddam is not killed or driven from power, Iraq must be destroyed militarily or be so severely crippled economically that it will pay for invading Kuwait for years to come.

Although the Soviet Union’s peace proposal does not appear unreasonable to many diplomats here, Bush and Fahd, diplomats said, are committed to ending the Gulf War by defeating Hussein’s military machine or by humiliating him so badly that he can not claim any kind of back-door victory. Anything less would leave Hussein and his Baathist rulers in position to eventually re-exert influence over the Gulf region.

U.S. and British military commanders are far more sanguine about crushing Iraq’s main force units quickly--and with a minimum of allied casualties--than they are willing to let on publicly. They have set up facilities to hold more than 100,000 war prisoners.

But they believe the “mopping up” and the retaking of Kuwait city could be time-consuming, and they intend to call on Saudi and Kuwaiti forces to do more of the front-line urban fighting than has been generally acknowledged.

The Arab forces, however, will not travel alone into Kuwait, because military authorities fear there could be massacres of Iraqis and of Palestinians, some of whom have lived in Kuwait for years but sold out the ruling Sabah family by providing important intelligence to the invading Iraqis last August.

“Our enemies are going to pay,” said one senior Saudi official, enunciating a radical shift for a country whose foreign policy before the war was based on checkbook diplomacy.

The major weapon Saudi Arabia intends to use to punish Iraq for its ill-fated invasion is reparations. Including existing debts and Kuwait’s expected claims for up to $100 billion for compensation from war damage, Iraq may be as much as $200 billion in arrears when the war is over.

Such a debt, economists said, would make it virtually impossible for Iraq to rebuild and could result in litigation so long that it might, for example, make oil companies reluctant to take even a tanker full of oil to a spot such as Rotterdam, the Dutch oil-shipping hub, for fear of being slapped with court papers.

Diplomats also say they doubt that Iran and Iraq are forming any kind of alliance, despite recent consultations and Iran’s willingness to provide a haven for Iraqi planes fleeing the battlefield.

Iran has outstanding claims against Baghdad for reparations from the eight-year Iran-Iraq War--an issue that the ayatollahs bring up from time to time, at moments of their choosing. Iran is sure to extract a price from Iraq before returning the more than 130 planes it holds, diplomats said.

Among those targeted for Saudi wrath are King Hussein of Jordan, whose grandfather was driven from Mecca by King Fahd’s father, and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Both had received huge subsidies from the Saudis and the Gulf states for years; both have sided against the Saudi-Egyptian-Syrian alliance in the war.

Saudi officials now speak of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in the past tense and question whether King Hussein can survive.

The displeasure with Arafat and King Hussein is so great here that those close to Fahd are moving toward the solution that radical Israelis offer for the Palestinian problem--to create a Palestinian homeland in Jordan, whose population is already about 70% Palestinian.

Fahd is known to believe that a new consortium of power emerging in the Arab world--centered on Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, perhaps, Syria--will include an important role for the United States.

Both the Americans and Saudis have surprised each other since the crisis began in August by maintaining their resolve. In the first months of the war, Washington expected Riyadh to grow weak-kneed; Riyadh expected Washington not to follow through on the tough line that Bush has articulated.

But, as a Saudi told an American businessman here: “For the first time, you’ve done what he said you were going to do.”