Tomahawks: Least Risky Option : Military: The cruise missiles were chosen to cause the fewest possible civilian casualties in Iraq while putting no U.S. personnel at risk.

In choosing to launch a Tomahawk cruise missile attack on Iraq’s intelligence headquarters, President Clinton and the Pentagon leadership picked the least risky of a variety of military options for dealing with what they consider the outlaw regime in Baghdad.

The raid was designed to cause the fewest possible civilian casualties in Iraq while putting no U.S. military personnel in harm’s way.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin said Saturday that the remote-control attack was “clearly designed as a wake-up call” to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people that the United States will not hesitate to deliver retribution if the regime continues to engage in assassinations, international terrorism and internal repression.

Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the intelligence service headquarters was chosen because the Administration considers it the “nexus” of Baghdad’s support for global terrorism.

Hussein himself was not targeted, not because of moral or legal qualms, Pentagon officials said, but for practical reasons.

“It’s very difficult to target a single individual,” Aspin said. “It’s very difficult to capture a single individual. Dropping bombs in the hope that you’re going to get a single individual is a very, very demanding task.”

The secretary pointedly made no mention of the standing prohibition in U.S. law against targeting foreign leaders for assassination. American forces hit every known hide-out of the Iraqi leader in the seven-week aerial bombardment of Iraq during the Gulf War, but officials never publicly admitted they were trying to kill Hussein.

Pentagon officials said they chose to strike in the middle of the night there to limit the casualties within the complex. Powell said that ordinarily the intelligence center would be manned overnight by code clerks, communications officers, computer technicians and cleaning crews, but that most high-ranking officials were probably absent.

The Tomahawk is a terrain-guided subsonic cruise missile that carries a 1,000-pound high-explosive conventional warhead over a potential range of several thousand miles.

The 23 missiles launched at Baghdad were fired at 12:22 a.m. today (1:22 p.m. Saturday PDT) from two U.S. Navy ships, the guided-missile destroyer Peterson in the Red Sea and the Aegis-class cruiser Chancellorsville sailing in the Persian Gulf.

The use of cruise missiles was additionally appealing to the Administration because it allowed Clinton to order a discrete action with little threat of retaliation against U.S. forces. Instead of being launched from nearby air bases in Saudi Arabia, the strike came from ships hundreds of miles away.

Powell said more U.S. warships were steaming into position in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to be ready for further action should Hussein attempt to retaliate.

White House and Pentagon officials described the one-time attack as “proportional” to the attempted assassination of former President George Bush, which provoked it. Iraq has denied responsiblity for any such plot against Bush.

But it was the scale of Clinton’s response to what he called a “loathsome and cowardly” deed that some analysts said dilutes its intended effect.

“It’s pretty hard to get a message to Saddam right now,” said Col. Richard A. Norton, professor of political science at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an expert on the Middle East. “The long and short of it is, it looks like a pea right now. Let’s face it--Clinton had to do something. But whether or not this is the pea Saddam chokes on remains to be seen.”

Norton expressed concern that the attack was not part of a larger plan for balancing power and bringing peace to the Middle East.

“There has to be a clear message that this kind of conspiring will not be tolerated,” the West Point professor said. “But in terms of broader canvas, one has to be concerned that the Administration is only paying sporadic attention to the Middle East. One would be a little more comfortable if this were more clearly part of a canvas that indicated a clear vision of what the Middle East looks like and may look like in the years ahead.”

Military officials said they had received no detailed assessment of damage to the complex. But Powell said that initial indications were that a majority of the 23 missiles launched had landed in the target area. He would not rule out the possibility that one or more had gone astray and landed in residential or commercial areas.

(The first statement from the Iraqi government said missiles had indeed struck in residential areas and killed many civilians.)

Powell said that even if all the cruise missiles hit their intended target, they would not have leveled the sprawling and fortified complex. The site was hit repeatedly during the 1991 Persian Gulf war and rebuilt quickly because of its importance to Iraq’s internal security operations, officials said.

“It is the hub for the Iraqi intelligence service’s operational planning, interrogations, communications, and computer operations,” Aspin said.

“By selecting this facility for attack late at night, we have designed a response that is proportional and will disrupt Iraq’s capability to conduct such future actions. And we believe it will be seen correctly by the people of Iraq and by the leadership as well as targeted solely against the regime responsible for the attack on President Bush and not targeted against the Iraqi people.”

Defense aides said there was no sign that the Iraqis knew the attack was coming.

Administration officials said they considered striking Friday night, almost immediately after Clinton was briefed on evidence of Baghdad’s alleged involvement in the Bush plot. But the attack was postponed so as not to occur on the Muslim Sabbath.

Tomahawk Missile

The Tomahawk, capable of following any geographical terrain to its intended target, can “see” through a tiny television camera mounted in its nose.

Guidance system

Warhead

Fuel tank Length: 21 ft. Diameter: 20.9 inches Wing Span: 8 ft. 6 inches Cruise Engine: 606 pounds thrust turbofan Range: about 170 miles Cruising Speed: 550 mph Sources: Jane’s Weapon Systems, The World’s Missile Systems