U.S. Eyes Tactics, Bases for Iraq Strike

The Clinton administration moved closer Thursday to launching new, expanded airstrikes against Iraq amid serious constraints over which bases it could use as staging areas and which tactics it would use to prevent Iraq from downing--and capturing--U.S. pilots.

In another move to position U.S. forces for possible action, the Pentagon ordered the aircraft carrier Enterprise, stationed in the central Mediterranean, to set sail for the Persian Gulf. It is expected to arrive there early next week.

The vessel, which carries more than 75 warplanes--including F-14 fighters equipped for precision bombing--will join eight radar-evading F-117A fighters from New Mexico, which are scheduled to arrive in Kuwait today, and four B-52 bombers now on Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. officials said the Army has also made plans to activate two Patriot antimissile batteries, which would be used to protect U.S. air crews. The missiles have been “prepositioned”--or placed in storage--in the region, they said. Crews will be flown to the Middle East from Ft. Bliss, Texas, to operate the weapons.

Although officials declined to discuss military plans, defense analysts suggested that the most likely targets would be mobile air defense batteries, antiaircraft bunkers, military installations, petroleum reserves and supply depots.

The F-117A stealth fighters were used initially in the 1991 Persian Gulf War for similar operations intended to knock out Iraqi air defenses so crews of conventional warplanes, such as B-52s, could carry out their missions with less danger.

While U.S. officials would not say so, expectations are that any new raids by U.S. forces would be larger than the cruise missile attacks mounted last week, possibly even including targets near Baghdad. The broader assault would serve to underscore U.S. resolve.

Still, analysts said Washington faces daunting challenges.

While the F-117As can easily operate out of Kuwait, U.S. forces could quickly face new difficulties if they had to expand the strikes, because other U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have refused to allow the United States to conduct such operations from their soil.

Although military planners have a long list of potential targets, strategists must choose carefully--first to ensure they have wiped out all potential dangers for U.S. pilots, and, second, to avoid jeopardizing relations with Muslim countries.

Analysts said one of the biggest fears for U.S. policymakers is the prospect that Iraq might down a U.S. aircraft and take the pilot hostage--a situation that would provide Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with an enormous psychological tool in the confrontation.

The developments came as Baghdad and Washington escalated their rhetoric, with Iraq boasting that it had fired three missiles at U.S. warplanes and accusing Kuwait of engaging in an “act of war” by agreeing to permit American fighters to launch strikes from its bases.

In a statement on Iraqi wire services, Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz said Baghdad considers Kuwait’s action “a flagrant aggression against the people of Iraq and an act of war against the Iraqi state.” Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 touched off the Persian Gulf War.

The Pentagon initially denied Iraq’s claims that missiles had been fired at U.S. planes. Officials said later that the firings did occur but were so far away from the path of U.S. fighters that American aircraft were not even aware of them.

But the administration reacted sharply to Baghdad’s assertion that Kuwait had committed an act of war, denouncing the charge as evidence that Iraq is still a threat to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and that the U.S. action against the Hussein regime is justified.

The latest confrontation between Iraq and the United States began in late August, when Baghdad moved about 40,000 troops into the northern part of the country in preparation for an attack--which it launched over the Labor Day weekend--against a Kurdish enclave in the area. Iraq said it was acting at the request of a Kurdish faction.

State Department spokesman Glyn Davies told reporters Thursday that Aziz’s remarks “effectively show the true colors of the Baghdad regime and their true interests in the region, right now. What he had to say was a very direct and real threat to Kuwait.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Thursday met with ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an organization of Arab countries along the Persian Gulf, in an effort to win their support for expanded U.S. military strikes against Iraq.

Although the group issued no statements, Davies said later that Aziz’s remarks “illustrate what is at stake for the coalition of countries that confronts Saddam Hussein.” The council includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Also Thursday, the Clinton administration came under new criticism from Republicans over its handling of Iraq, with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III contending that President Clinton should have acted more boldly, hitting targets around Baghdad in last week’s strikes.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Baker also suggested that the White House had lost the support of the allied coalition for actions designed to protect Kurds in northern Iraq.

Earlier this week, both Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp, harshly criticized Clinton’s performance. On Thursday, Kemp said the administration should decide what it wants to accomplish before “dropping bombs on anybody.”

Separately, the U.N. Security Council, divided over the latest crisis involving Iraq, was unable to decide whether to put into effect the oil-for-food deal that was to have allowed Baghdad to sell $2 billion worth of oil to help buy food and medical supplies.

Instead, the 15-member panel effectively turned the decision over to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, telling him to carry out the proposal whenever he saw fit. The U.S. had opposed the arrangement on grounds that Iraq was violating U.N. demands.