Decisions Were Like Dominoes at White House

Air Force One had climbed into the darkness over the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport when President Clinton convened a meeting of his national security team on board and, by secure telephone channels, in Washington.

Eventually, each of those participating in the long-distance meeting Tuesday night had a say. The judgment was unanimous: It was time, right then, to set in motion the raids intended to reduce Iraq’s capacity to wage war with weapons of mass destruction.

The timing could not have been more politically suspect. The president was returning from a three-day trip to Israel and the Gaza Strip to face a debate in the House of Representatives that was widely expected, within 48 hours, to lead to his impeachment.

Yet by insistent accounts of the administration’s most senior national security officials, the timing had been set in motion exactly one month before.

The four stars on his shoulder board gleaming, the chest of his green Army uniform covered in commendation medals and ribbons, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nearly bristled at the implied suggestion Wednesday that impeachment considerations played a part in the timing of the attack.

He offered a long explanation about the factors that were considered, including “what windows of opportunity might be available.”

What it all boiled down to, he told reporters at the Pentagon, was this: If the chief U.N. weapons inspector reported Dec. 15 that Saddam Hussein had reneged again, “then the 16th was the day that we should do it.”

Among the factors that had to line up: the arrival of a second aircraft carrier battle group and the full complement of B-52 bombers, in the process of a pre-Christmas rotation.

The second carrier is due to arrive this weekend--so, he said, “things just fell into place.”

“Militarily, it was the right decision, the right date, and that decision was made back in November,” Shelton said.

Yet the crucial political element, even if the military factors fell into line, remained Iraq’s response to the efforts by the U.N. arms inspectors.

On Nov. 14, Clinton halted a raid shortly before the cruise missiles would have been launched because Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had pledged to comply with all the demands put on him by the inspectors.

This time around, Richard Butler, the Australian who is the chief inspector, was completing his report on just how far his inspectors had been able to get in locating evidence of Hussein’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program. It was not far.

At 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, even as Clinton and his aides were already well into their discussions, Butler took an elevator to the 38th floor of the U.N. Secretariat Building overlooking New York’s East River. There, he conferred briefly with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, handing him a 10-page report.

The report had undergone several drafts, and the words were carefully chosen, but the message was stark: Rather than cooperate, Baghdad had placed new restrictions on the arms monitors and those charged with ferreting out the weapons.

Annan forwarded the report, with a cover letter, and offered the Security Council three options: to rule that the past month was not a long enough period to evaluate Iraq’s compliance; to decide that Iraq had not provided sufficient cooperation but should be given more time; or to undertake a comprehensive review of the extent of Iraqi disarmament since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The United States, in effect, tore up the cover letter. With the tacit support of Mideast allies, and with Britain’s operational support, and little else, its decision had been made.

Just about midnight, Peter Burleigh, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, told Annan by telephone that he had recommended to Butler that the inspectors be pulled out of Iraq. Butler took immediate steps to carry out the evacuation.

After returning to the White House, the president held an after-midnight meeting in the residence of the White House with his national security advisor, Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, and his chief of staff, John Podesta. Talking for more than an hour, they discussed the operation and their concerns about how the timing would be perceived by the Congress and the country.

“There was clearly an awareness that there would be a reaction to it,” one senior White House official said. “In the end, . . . we had to do what we felt was right. We had to decide on the merits.”

At 7 a.m. EST Wednesday, the president’s senior national security team met in the secure White House Situation Room on the ground floor of the West Wing for an hourlong meeting on military action.

The principals--Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Defense Secretary William S. Cohen; Berger; Shelton; CIA Director George Tenet; Podesta; and Leon Fuerth, Vice President Al Gore’s national security advisor--sat in black leather chairs around a conference table.

About 30 minutes into the meeting, the president took his seat at the head of the table. It became clear that he was ready to give the green light for Operation Desert Fox.

On his way from the situation room about 8 a.m., the president stopped in on the daily senior staff meeting, which was taking place in Podesta’s office, to offer encouragement to his staff.

The president, who rarely stops in on the daily meeting, felt it was important to thank his aides for their fortitude under the storm of impeachment and to remind them that they must keep doing the people’s work and not be discouraged by the impending proceedings, officials said.

He told them that impeachment would “take care of itself,” one staff member recalled, paraphrasing the president.

Then the president, back in the Oval Office, pulled the trigger on the mission.

Also in the morning, the president called to inform Speaker-designate Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) about the mission.

Several times during the day, the president spoke on the telephone and in person with Berger. During one of these conversations, early in the afternoon, Berger told Clinton that the forces were about to launch, and the president reaffirmed his decision.

About 4:30 p.m., Lott said he could not back U.S. air raids on Iraq “at this time.”

At 5 p.m., White House officials gathered around TVs to watch CNN broadcast the strike in Iraq.

As the missiles and bombs were landing in Iraq, Deputy Chief of Staff Steve Ricchetti called a meeting in his office with the senior White House officials involved in the effort to block impeachment.

He told the assembled group: “Let’s stand down and not work the issue of impeachment,” one aide who attended the meeting recalled. A decision was made to revisit their campaign to save president Thursday morning.

And at 6:01 p.m., a somber Clinton addressed the nation from the Oval Office.

Toward the end of the evening’s third news conference by a Cabinet member, Berger was asked whether there was anything Iraq could do not to stop the action.

“I think we will conduct and complete the mission as planned,” he replied soberly.

Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.