In Hussein’s Backyard, a New Line in the Sand

The Clinton administration’s new strategy on Iraq marks a long-avoided and potentially risky turning point in the two nations’ six-year confrontation as the United States extends its line in the sand right up to Baghdad.

“The United States is no longer willing to act just around the periphery of Iraq--in the Kurdish north or the Shiite south,” a Pentagon official said Tuesday. “We are now prepared to respond with attacks to the center.”

In the wake of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition opted not to move on Baghdad for fear of getting sucked into the quagmire of Iraq’s deeply divided ethnic politics. Baghdad, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims, is also one of Hussein’s two traditional strongholds.

The terms of the U.N. cease-fire after the Gulf War called for the multinational coalition to keep its distance from Baghdad. And all subsequent coalition actions--most notably after Hussein deployed troops to put down simultaneous rebellions in the north and south in the wake of the war and after Baghdad amassed troops on Kuwait’s border in 1994--were basically confined to actions in the north or south.

But President Clinton’s expansion of the southern “no-fly” zone from the 32nd to the 33rd parallel will take the U.S.-protected area right up to Baghdad’s suburbs. Iraqis in outlying areas of their capital may even be able to see U.S. warplanes flying above or hear their sonic booms.

The strategy finally deals with one aspect of the Gulf War end game that none of the U.N. mandates addressed: Hussein’s control of his own turf.

But the tactic also carries risks.

“There is enormous potential for escalation because Iraq may decide to challenge the United States on territory most familiar” to Hussein, said Henri Barkey, a Lehigh University specialist on Iraq and the Kurds.

“There are a number of things he can do to escalate the conflict within Iraq itself, such as if he tried to fly a civilian aircraft over the new ‘no-fly’ area. Or he might try to do something that he thinks could only be responded to if the U.S. increased its involvement--which he knows the U.S. is intent on avoiding.”

The new U.S. strategy also contains a certain irony: Its overall impact may affect Hussein less and the Kurds more.

That presents a second set of risks.

Hussein’s latest aggression in the Kurdish north presented the administration with a choice--responding in a way that narrowly addressed Iraq’s troop deployments in the north or trying to deliver a blow that would make it more difficult for Hussein to engage in further adventures.

The administration explicitly chose not to strike at Hussein’s invasion forces near the Kurdistan capital, Irbil, according to experts both inside and outside the government.

The administration settled on the second choice as easier to achieve and more valuable in the long run. With the destruction of some of Hussein’s massive arsenal, the raid provided a quick, if limited, gain. Iraq’s tactical aggression was converted into a strategic setback that, the administration hopes, will make it easier for the United States to contain Hussein.

Analysts, however, said that the strike is hardly likely to deter future mischief by the Iraqi dictator. If the Gulf War did not curb Hussein’s penchant for going his own way, the loss of key weaponry is unlikely to have a huge effect.

The strike also did little to affect the heart of Iraq’s military machine, the largest and mightiest in the region.

“The U.S. attack struck a relatively small number of air defense targets, not large troop concentrations, much less the elite Republican Guard units, which are both the spearhead of the attack against Irbil and the core of Saddam’s support,” according to Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor under former President Bush. “It remains to be seen whether the somewhat circumscribed, low-risk attack we launched succeeds in sending the high-fidelity message we intend to be heard in Baghdad.”

Yet by pumping 27 cruise missiles into four air defense installations in southern Iraq, the United States effectively abandoned the very people its military intervention was ostensibly designed to address--the Kurds in the mountainous northern reaches of Iraq.

“The message is that the United States is now going to orient our acts toward our strategic and economic interests, which are in the Persian Gulf states to the south,” a Pentagon official acknowledged Tuesday.

The White House is exasperated by the Kurds, who have received more than $300 million in U.S. humanitarian aid in recent years.

“After five years of very intense good-faith efforts, which involved creating a U.N. guard corps to protect the Kurds, helping convoys deliver food, building bridges for relief agencies in 1992 when Saddam was trying to starve them out, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into redevelopment after the 1991 fighting and months of U.S. diplomatic mediation between the two factions, there has been a fundamental change,” a senior administration official said Tuesday.

“One faction decided to throw in its lot with Saddam Hussein,” the official said. “That was the key fact in Saddam’s decision to move. We also have to consider it when we decide what to do.”

Yet leaving the Kurds to their feuding could be bad for the region. Kurdish opposition groups are also sources of serious political tension in Turkey and Iran, with spillovers in Syria and some of the former Soviet republics.

Another risk involves politics. In launching his second attack against Iraq--the first was a strike on its intelligence headquarters after Baghdad allegedly plotted to assassinate Bush in 1993--Clinton appeared strong and defiant. It is an image as desirable in the uncertainty of the post-Cold War world as in an election season. Again, however, there are dangers.

For Clinton, the latest episode between the two countries is also altering the dynamics of the confrontation. It is now taking on personal dimensions, making efforts to defuse tensions more difficult, analysts said.

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Iraq Firepower

A brief look at the firepower available to the United States and Iraq in the Gulf Region:

Iraq

Troop strength: 350,000 to 400,000

Air Power: 150 to 200 Russian combat aircraft*

Weapons: Deadliest threat comes from Scud missiles. Hussein still is believed to have some mobile launchers, which were difficult to detect during the Gulf War.

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United States

Troop strength: 20,000 (includes those afloat in Persian Gulf and stationed in Saudi Arabia)

Air Power: 200 warplanes, 50 helicopters, transport planes and other aircraft**

Weapons: The United States has powerful cruise missiles that were launched from ships in the Gulf as well as by B-52 bombers early Tuesday.

* Just how many are operational is questionable due to a severe shortage of spare parts and poor maintenance.

** The Air Force was assembling an “air expeditionary force” of 30 to 40 fighter planes that could deploy to the Middle East as a quick-reaction force, officials said.