Insider : Iraq’s Force Is Broken but Unbowed : The Gulf War left Saddam Hussein’s military machine sputtering. However, a giant rebuilding effort continues.

Almost 200 of Iraq’s Scud missiles remain hidden in basements and garages, its vaunted biological-weapons program remains undiscovered by dogged U.N. inspectors, and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein continues to spew his bluster at his nervous Mideast neighbors.

But the conventional military machine that once gave muscle to Hussein’s threats is broken. It is, according to Defense Department experts, one-quarter to one-third the size and strength of its prewar incarnation, and its remnants are patched together with string and sealing wax. Squeezed by continuing U.N. trade sanctions against Iraq, moreover, it appears to be getting worse by the day.

To the U.S. military, that makes Saddam Hussein a paper tiger. To his neighbors, that makes him a desperado, backed into a corner with no weapons but those of terror. But to his own citizens, Saddam Hussein is still a monster, capable of using his creaking military machine to inflict pain and cruelty.

For the time being, at least, all agree on one prescription for the Iraqi leader and his military: As long as he is in power, only continued economic sanctions will keep Iraq from regaining the military strength that made it a bully of global proportions.

“Over the long term, particularly if the sanctions don’t hold, this regime in Baghdad has the potential to be once again threatening to its neighbors,” a senior Bush Administration official said last week. “Right now,” he added, “it’s primarily a threat to its own people.”

But Baghdad’s moves against its own people--now threatened by a large buildup of forces against the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south--may soon bring Iraqi forces back into contact with those of the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf War. Attacks against Iraqi minorities would violate U.N. resolutions and could draw a U.S. military response.

It was confirmed over the weekend that the Pentagon has already dispatched an air command staff to Saudi Arabia, where it would take control of any U.S. air action against the Iraqis.

If that should happen, U.S. defense officials believe the hollowness of Iraq’s remaining military and the depth of the demoralization among its troops would quickly become evident.

Using military tactics of intimidation, Hussein’s forces appear to have the strength to prevent further progress of the insurgents, said a knowledgeable Pentagon official. But while he “can probably manage his insurgency campaign . . . he’s got more than enough on his plate” to try to make good on threats to retake Kuwait.

His force is large enough, however, to draw the United States into a potentially costly fight, another expert said.

“He has troublemaking potential,” said Michael Eisenstadt, a Mideast analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s in a much-reduced position from before the war in terms of his ability to trouble his neighbors and project power in the region. There’s no doubt (that) in any future conflict we could defeat him. But the point is, he could suck us back in, and that’s something we just don’t want to do.”

Hussein’s efforts to rebuild his conventional military strength have been titanic, said several knowledgeable experts. Those rebuilding efforts have greatly bolstered a force that ended the war in paralysis and restored Iraq’s military to a position of dominance on the Arabian peninsula, experts said. But while there have been successes, there are signs of dismal failure as well.

In the 18 months since U.S. and allied forces pummeled Iraq’s military and drove it out of Kuwait, a defense official said, Hussein has ordered a reorganization of his regular army units as well as of the elite Republican Guard.

Fearing coup attempts, the Iraqi president also has banished all those forces to areas at least 60 miles outside Baghdad. And while he has lightened the punch of the regular and Republican Guard units, Hussein has beefed up the Presidential Guard forces that protect him.

The best of Iraq’s remaining tanks, personnel carriers and artillery pieces have gone to the estimated 80,000-member Republican Guard, and the best of those have gone to the Presidential Guard.

Iraq’s air defense network similarly has been reconstructed with an emphasis on protecting Baghdad, and the command-and-control system that allowed Hussein to launch Scuds during the war is intact in at least a rudimentary form, said a knowledgeable defense official. As long as Hussein’s military impotence continues, experts said, biological weapons and Scud missiles pose a particularly potent threat to the region because they are the regime’s only means of striking out effectively.

The military reorganizations have left the bulk of current Iraqi forces--the estimated 320,000-member regular army--ill-equipped, dispirited and in tatters. Their equipment is shabby, the absence of spare parts has brought training to a virtual standstill, and the troops are “probably scared to death” by insurgents who largely control the areas in which the army troops are garrisoned, a Pentagon official said.

More than half a dozen postwar pay raises for the military have failed to secure what most agree is the sine qua non of military effectiveness--the loyalty and discipline of the troops.

A senior Defense Department official said the physical appearance of regular Iraqi army troops has taken a particular dive in recent months. Reports reaching U.S. officials tell of regular army soldiers marching with tattered uniforms and boots with holes in them--an indication of poor provisioning and bad discipline. To keep them serving, Hussein has offered the troops increased leave--and many never come back, said a senior defense official.

Last summer, when regular army units battled Kurdish separatists in the north, thousands either defected or threw up their hands in surrender, Kurdish separatists have reported to U.S. experts. In the south, defense officials said regular Iraqi army forces have deserted in large numbers and appear to be fighting alongside the Shiite insurgents in the marshes.

Nor will Iraq’s remaining air power be effective in compensating for poor ground troops. The 350 Iraqi warplanes that were not destroyed or flown to Iran during the war did not fly for almost 13 months following the outbreak of the war. A State Department official said recently they have been flying combat training missions “virtually every day” since early April. But the break in training caused a serious downturn in the proficiency of Iraqi fliers, officials said.

One noted Mideast military expert, Anthony Cordesman, added that the effectiveness of Baghdad’s postwar military reached its zenith in the spring. Cordesman said that “with every month that’s gone by, there’s been a steady deterioration” of their might, because Iraq’s access to foreign technology and expertise has been strangled by the allies’ continued economic sanctions. Iraq, which once maintained a well-oiled military machine on $3 billion to $4 billion worth of imports per year, must now rely on a trickle of smuggled parts.

If relaxation of trade sanctions opens the flow of such imports, however, officials and independent experts alike warn that Hussein will have both the will and the means to restore his military forces to something akin to their prewar strength. That, said officials, is why the United States has pressed hard to shore up the sometimes-flagging resolve of allies to maintain the trade sanctions for as long as Hussein leads the country.

“Left alone, not only does he have the potential but clearly the will and the desire” to rebuild his military strength, one senior Pentagon official said.

Looking beyond the threat Hussein poses to his own people, the official warned, “he’s an extremely dangerous person for his neighbors and for the world.”

“But while there have been successes in Iraq’s attempt to bolster its forces, there are signs of dismal failure as well.”

Iraqi Military Strength

August, 1990 July, 1992 Personnel 1,000,000 400,000 (approximate) Divisions 54 28 Tanks 5,500 2,500+ Armored 5,100 3,000 Personnel Carriers Artillery 3,500 1,500+ Combat 700 350 (plus about 100 in Iran) Helicopters 500 450 Naval 20 * vessels

* May have a few coastal/patrol craft seaworthy, but navy is essentially non-operational

WHERE THEY’RE DEPLOYED

* 15 to 20 divisions, mostly regular army, near Kurdistan in the north

* 7 Republican Guard divisions in and around Bagdad

* 3 to 8 divisions fighting Shiites in the south or watching Iran border

Source: Washington institute for Near East Policy, Defense Department