Bush Denies Political Plan for Iraq Showdown

President Bush strongly denied Sunday that he is trying to provoke the Iraqi regime into a showdown to boost his reelection campaign. Yet he also issued a stiff warning to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to comply with all U.N. resolutions.

“Saddam Hussein needs to realize that the world will not ignore interference with these U.N. requirements. He cannot be allowed to dictate what can and cannot be inspected,” Bush said on returning to the White House from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.

At the same time, the President angrily dismissed a New York Times story suggesting that, for political reasons, he might force a military confrontation with Hussein as early as today, as the Republicans open their national convention in Houston.

“I don’t commit somebody else’s son or daughter to battle or any kind of combat unless it is the right thing to do, regardless of politics,” Bush said.

He said he was “shocked” by the New York newspaper’s report, in which an unnamed official alleged that the Administration was orchestrating a U.N. inspection of sensitive Iraqi facilities, inviting an obstruction by Hussein that would trigger a U.S. air raid.

Bush said that U.N. inspectors decide on their own which buildings to visit in their search for evidence of Iraqi production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

“I have responsibilities as President and responsibilities as commander in chief, and I will go through with those responsibilities regardless of the politics,” he said.

The President’s thinly veiled threat to use force came as Pentagon officials said that an air command staff had been dispatched to Saudi Arabia to prepare for possible air strikes against Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Nelson, who runs Central Command’s air component at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, and his staff of 30 flew to Riyadh at the end of last week. Nelson will coordinate any allied air campaign against Iraq, Pentagon sources said.

“We now have sufficient people there that, if we need to act, we can,” a Pentagon official said. Nelson will assume the role played by Lt. Gen. Charles Horner in running the air war in the Gulf last year, the sources said.

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney tried Sunday to play down Nelson’s assignment. He described it as a “routine deployment” and part of a process “to maintain a significant military presence in the region” to force Hussein to comply with U.N. resolutions.

But a senior Administration source said in an interview Sunday that a “new consensus” had been built within the multinational coalition in recent weeks to act swiftly and forcefully in the event Baghdad violates U.N. resolutions requiring that weapons of mass destruction be destroyed and prohibiting suppression of ethnic groups in Iraq. Until a July crisis at the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry, he said, the coalition--embracing the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and other nations--had “gone a little soft.”

U.N. inspectors were denied access to the Agriculture Ministry, where they suspected arms-related documents might be hidden. The impasse finally was resolved, but Americans were removed from the inspection team at Iraq’s insistence.

The source said that the United States is prepared to act in the event Baghdad refuses either to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their mission or if Iraq escalates its campaign against southern Shiite insurgents.

“If he (Hussein) denies access to the inspectors, then there’ll be a confrontation. If he begins to repress his own people in a serious way, then there’ll be a confrontation,” the source said. “Either way, the ball is in his court.”

Bush and ranking Republicans tried Sunday to distance the stronger Iraq policy from this week’s GOP convention in Houston and the presidential campaign.

Cheney called the New York Times report “goofy,” “totally fallacious” and “totally irresponsible.”

Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), the convention’s keynote speaker, said in an interview on Cable News Network: “George Bush is not going to be provoked into doing something that is not in our interests based on some kind of personal dislike. Whether we have an incident, whether it occurs on Monday or Thursday or next year is going to be determined not so much by the President, but by Iraq.”

Judging by Baghdad’s recent actions, southern Iraq may turn out to be the arena for a U.S.-Iraq showdown. Administration officials said Sunday that the Iraqi army and air force are poised for a new offensive against Shiite insurgents in the marshes near the port city of Basra.

Both Iraq’s use of air power below the 32nd Parallel and human rights violations against its own people are clear violations of U.N. resolutions. Bush specifically warned Hussein on Sunday against “the brutalization of his own people.”

And Cheney told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base: “In recent weeks there have been efforts under way by the Iraqis to use their assets in the south to oppress the (Shiites). We’ve raised that as one of the things we’re concerned about. It is a violation of U.N. Resolution 688, and we think it ought to cease.”

A senior Administration official said that the Iraqi crackdown on the Shiites and use of air power had increased over the past week.

There was no indication from U.N. inspectors Sunday, however, about the state of the latest mission. In Baghdad, the U.N. team conducted a brief inspection followed by five hours of talks with Iraqi officials. Team leader Nikita Smidovich, a Russian chemical weapons specialist, told reporters that he was waiting for instructions from U.N. headquarters in New York about whether the 22-member team should leave Tuesday.

In contrast to previous trips, this mission has been extremely low-key. Smidovich has refused to comment on where the inspectors are going or what they are looking for. He said only that the inspection would continue today.

In New York, U.N. Special Commission officials expressed annoyance at the implications that they would provoke a confrontation with the Iraqis at the bidding of the United States.

Commission spokesman Tim Trevan said that Washington “has greatly assisted” the inspectors over the last 18 months with information about Iraq’s arms caches. But, he said, “we receive information from a variety of sources. . . . On the basis of our assessment, we make the decision” about what to inspect. “We don’t seek confrontation. We just seek to do our mandate.”

U.N. officials said that they were puzzled by the New York Times story.

“I’m surprised that the U.S. government has basically leaked the story, regardless of its truth or falsehood,” a U.N. official said. Because of the publicity, he added, the inspectors probably would not now risk a confrontation even if that had been their intention.

Indications are growing that there could be military action in the Persian Gulf. There is an increase in the U.S. ground and naval presence in the Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, at least in part because of joint U.S.-Kuwait Army and Marine exercises.

The United States currently has 19 ships in the Gulf and adjacent waters, including the aircraft carrier Independence battle group with a normal air contingent of 72 bombers, fighters, surveillance aircraft and command and control planes. The number of ships is higher than usual, in part to support the current amphibious military exercises in Kuwait.

The United States also has six warships in the Red Sea, 18 in the Mediterranean and an unknown number of Tomahawk-equipped submarines patrolling the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.

And the carrier Saratoga, also with a full air contingent, is deployed in the Adriatic Sea, largely because of the Yugoslav crisis. Aircraft on the Saratoga are capable of reaching the Persian Gulf with aerial refueling.

The United States also has 120 land-based warplanes in the Persian Gulf, predominantly in Saudi Arabia.

Roughly 5,000 U.S. troops, both Marines and army personnel, are expected to be in Kuwait by the end of this week for separate exercises with Kuwaiti troops.

Times staff writers Melissa Healy, John M. Broder and Stanley Meisler contributed to this report.