U.S. Moves Ahead With Buildup Plan : Military: It says Baghdad’s conciliatory gestures cannot be trusted, citing a record of ‘cheat and retreat.’

Despite concessions from Baghdad, the White House warned Thursday that it is continuing to draw up plans for possible new punitive measures against Iraq to force an end to a record of “cheat and retreat” that it says has undermined U.N. resolutions.

“This is a pattern that has been very troubling and makes us consider what other pressures ought to be brought to bear,” spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

Senior advisers to President Bush were understood to have warned that conciliatory steps by the Iraqis in the current confrontation over documents seized by a U.N. inspection team may mark no more than a temporary attitude. They have predicted that there will be further confrontations over access for the U.N. inspectors.

And with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein having shown a penchant for provoking crisis, officials said, the Administration is seeking to develop a more effective way to threaten Iraq into complying with the conditions for a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War set by the United Nations.

In a private session with Bush on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the President that “prudent” military planning requires a substantial buildup in advance of any new military action against Iraq, according to senior officials.

To that end, the Pentagon moved Thursday to put in place the first elements of an enlarged military presence in the region to enforce the U.N. inspection program and to carry out any punitive strikes that may be ordered.

The first of six batteries of Patriot missiles from Germany arrived in Saudi Arabia and will be operational shortly, officials said. The remaining batteries were being loaded aboard C-5 transport aircraft at U.S. military bases in Germany for shipment to the Gulf.

The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and seven other Navy ships carrying 9,000 Marines and sailors sailed from Norfolk, Va., for the Middle East, where the fleet will join the Forrestal and Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier task forces already in the region.

Last week, three amphibious ships carrying 1,600 sailors and 2,200 Marines were sent from Norfolk to patrol the Persian Gulf. Navy spokesmen said the Eisenhower group, which is expected to be in place within 10 days, would conduct routine operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

And the Pentagon said that Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, who coordinated the allied air campaign against Iraq, will leave today for Saudi Arabia to prepare contingency plans for renewed military strikes.

Horner, who serves as Air Force chief for the Central Command, will be accompanied by a number of his senior staff officers, including specialists in intelligence, combat operations and logistics.

Administration officials indicated that the pace of the buildup would not be slowed by Iraq’s willingness to permit a team of 44 U.N. inspectors in Baghdad to take possession of sensitive nuclear documents. The concession appeared likely to end a three-day standoff in which Iraqi soldiers have prevented the team from leaving a Baghdad parking lot.

However, a senior defense official said Thursday night that an order to send four attack helicopters to Saudi Arabia has been canceled. The copters, which were to be ferried from Okinawa on transport planes, would have flown cover for U.N. inspection flights over Iraq.

“We’re going to wait and see what happens in the parking lot,” the official said.

White House spokesman Fitzwater said that the episode involving the inspectors, together with Iraq’s earlier refusal to abide by other U.N. cease-fire terms, suggested that further steps might be necessary to ensure “long-term compliance.”

“We’ll wait and see,” Fitzwater said. “There’s been a pattern of cheat and retreat all the way through this.”

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, warned earlier in the week that even if the current crisis with Iraq were resolved, the expected need to continue U.N. inspections for months, if not for years, meant “it’s not over in the long run.”

“We’re likely to face this thing on a periodic basis,” Aspin said.

Administration officials confirmed that the Pentagon is continuing to consider what military means might serve as the most appropriate stick to be wielded as a threat against further Iraqi cheating.

But one source said such planning would become “a little more relaxed” if, as expected, the U.N. team is freed. “What will change is that it (the planning) won’t go on 24 hours a day.

U.S. Military in the Gulf

EN ROUTE TO MIDDLE EAST:

Aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and seven other Navy ships carrying 9,000 Marines and sailors headed to Mediterranean Sea.

1,300 troops sent to Saudi Arabia.

24 Patriot missile launchers and 96 antimissile missiles being moved to Saudi Arabia. ALREADY IN PERSIAN GULF REGION:

About 200 Air Force jet fighters and spy planes. Array includes A-10 “tank killers,” F-15 and F-16 fighters, F-117A Stealth fighters, EF-111 electronic warfare planes and U-2 spy planes.

35,950 troops consisting of about 11,200 Army, 4,750 Air Force, 16,000 Navy and 4,000 Marines.

Aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is in the Gulf, and the Forrestal is in eastern Mediterranean. Nearly 30 U.S. warships are in the Gulf.