NEWS ANALYSIS : Limited Strike Avoids Costly Consequences : Strategy: More sweeping attacks could have sparked rifts among the allies and increased the possibility of downed and captured allied pilots.

By MELISSA HEALY

Jan. 14, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

By choosing a limited strike against Iraqi antiaircraft missiles and command complexes, the United States avoided the potentially more costly political and military consequences of more sweeping action.

And leading the list of such troubling consequences might have been rifts within the alliance enforcing the United Nation’s resolutions against Iraq and the possibility of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein holding captured allied pilots on Inauguration Day.

“They were on the horns of a dilemma,” said one Pentagon expert.

“They could do something big enough to make Saddam Hussein understand they were serious and make him back down, but in doing that, they would run the risk of losing an aircraft. And then things would get really hairy.”

Still, Wednesday’s four-hour attack demonstrated unmistakably how bare and exposed many of Iraq’s military assets are to U.S. attacks--a psychological message that officials here hope will stir restiveness among the Iraqi military and foster conditions for Hussein’s overthrow.

While attacks on the air defense sites in the “no-fly zone” of southern Iraq were one of the Bush Administration’s most limited options for a military strike, they also were the most easily expandable in the future: By knocking out Baghdad’s eyes and ears along the route that allied aircraft would take on a return run, the strikes cleared the principal obstacles to any broader operation against the military capability that survived the 1991 Gulf War.

Military experts and Pentagon officials acknowledged that the threat would be a useful stick that President Bush and his successor, President-elect Bill Clinton, could brandish to try to keep Iraq in line.

Pentagon officials said the attack on surface-to-air missiles and air defense complexes in the south was the option that Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, recommended to Bush.

Bush traditionally has given military preferences great weight in his decisions. This time, he seemed to respond particularly to the military’s concerns about the likelihood of U.S. casualties if he ordered broader strikes, necessarily involving more planes and personnel.

Military officials have said that Iraq’s SA-2 and SA-3 missiles have been more of a nuisance than a potent threat to allied aircraft, which are equipped to counter them.

At the same time, Pentagon officials have watched with greater concern over the last year as Iraq has begun to rebuild a network of radar and command stations that would link individual missiles and provide Baghdad with warning of an allied strike.

Hoar’s air combat commanders were most interested in disabling that incipient network and argued that such a move, while limited, would be what one officer Wednesday called “a real blow” to Iraq’s military.

For Bush and his political advisers, that advice fit in with one of the President’s key political aims--to assure a dignified departure from office and leave Clinton a wide range of options to pursue should Iraq’s president continue to defy the U.S.-led alliance.

One Bush Administration official, in analyzing the factors that led to the limited strike, recalled the final days of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, when Iranian officials refused to turn over the American hostages taken in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Iran’s holding of the hostages is believed to have played a role in Carter’s reelection defeat, and although their release was negotiated, they were not set free until moments after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as President.

One downed American pilot, the official said, would paint a similar backdrop to Bush’s final days in office.

While the Iraqi president might very well return a pilot to Clinton in a dramatic gesture of conciliation, he would very likely use the opportunity to deny the same pleasure to Bush, thereby taunting his American nemesis up to his final moments in office.

Britain’s reluctance to go much further than a limited strike also contributed to the shape of Wednesday’s operation.

One knowledgeable official said British diplomats have been “very legalistic” about the nature of Iraq’s provocations and have been wary of branding all of Baghdad’s moves violations of established law. As a result, they have pressed particularly hard for a tailored response.

Prime Minister John Major said the attack was “both limited and proportionate,” and warned that the allies would “have no hesitation” to take further military action if Iraq’s reaction is not conciliatory.

Finally, Bush Administration officials said that the strike will contribute to efforts to devise a more “comprehensive” approach to the problem of Iraq by raising the Iraqi military’s sense of vulnerability.

With their southern early-warning systems gone, Iraq’s commanders would understand that when their president orders actions that violate allied demands or the terms of U.N. resolutions, it would be the military--not Hussein--who would likely pay the price.

“If they comply with the provisions of the no-fly zone, they have absolutely no reason to feel vulnerable,” said one Pentagon official, who left the threat in his comments implicit.

STRIKING FROM THE SEA

Aircraft carriers, such as the one used to launch the attack, are essentially floating airports. Their primary mission is to refuel, rearm, and protect their aircraft. The vessel’s air-to-air, air-to-surface and cruise missiles are used both offensively--to hit land and floating targets--and defensively.

THE KITTY HAWK: The Kitty Hawk, commissioned in 1961, carries a lethal mix of fixed-wing aircraft. Its usual arsenal includes 20 F-14 Tomcats, 20 F/A-18 Hornets, 4 E-2C Hawkeyes and 10 S-3A/B Vikings. This is a tactical air force larger than that of many nations.

In the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea

* One aircraft carrier: Kitty Hawk

* One command ship: LaSalle

* Four cruisers: Cowpens, Leahy, Standley, Worden

* Two destroyers: Hewitt, Stump

* Two frigates: Jarrett, Roberts

* Three auxiliary ships

* One destroyer: Caron

* Two frigates: Reid, Capadonno

* One auxiliary ship

FLIGHT DECK FEATURES

A) Jet Blast Deflectors