Officials Say Future Strategy Relies on Force, Not Inspections

When the smoke clears over Iraq, the Clinton administration will pursue a strategy known as “containment-plus” that relies on U.S. force rather than U.N. inspections to counter President Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, according to senior administration officials.

The working assumption in Washington is that even if U.N. weapons inspectors are allowed to return to Baghdad, the Iraqi leader’s regime is unlikely to be any more cooperative than it has been during the past year.

“We would welcome the return of the weapons inspectors, but their ability to do the job seems highly unlikely from here on out,” a senior administration official said. “If the U.N. can’t do its job, we have to find other ways.”

In the months ahead, the administration is now committed to taking a more aggressive line against Baghdad and to backing it up with force whenever needed--again without warning, administration officials claim.

“Any attempt to be reckless again will be met with the use of force--at the time and place of U.S. choosing,” the senior official said.

Washington is no longer prepared to accept any more pledges of cooperation from Iraq after the U.S.-British bombardment of the country ends, American officials said.

“Over the past year, Saddam has systematically blocked the U.N. inspectors time and again, and each time his promises have proven to be worthless,” the official added. “He has stalled for more than seven years. Time is up.”

To the long-standing U.S. policy of containment, the “plus” strategy adds new military kick and additional financial incentives for any party that topples the Iraqi leader. The policy was outlined in general form in a speech by National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger at Stanford University last week.

In the past, containment has centered on punitive economic sanctions, limited support for the Iraqi opposition, the dismantling of Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction and limited military retaliation for major provocations.

In his speech, Berger outlined the new incentives to forces either within Iraq’s ruling circle or among the Iraqi opposition. “We will stand ready to help a new government in Iraq that respects the rights of its people and meets its obligations to the world,” he said. “We would work to ease economic sanctions against such a new Iraq as quickly as possible.

“We would also work to relieve Iraq’s massive economic debts,” he said.

On the military side, the ongoing U.S.-British campaign, dubbed Operation Desert Fox, was designed to create the kind of turmoil that might foster actions that weaken Hussein’s regime.

With its strikes, the U.S. is trying to create a new political reality on the ground by going after the key military groups, such as the Republican Guard, that are closest to Hussein and the security units that provide his personal protection, officials say.

The goal, U.S. officials say, is to make Hussein more vulnerable, physically and politically.

This more subtle side of Operation Desert Fox follows a recent U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded that no military official is likely to be able to get close enough to the Iraqi leader to topple him because of the draconian security measures that even his closest advisors and guards face and the constant rotation of personnel.

That assessment basically pulled the rug out from under the main U.S. working assumption for more than seven years about how Hussein would eventually be ousted.

The one exception in the assessment suggested that the turmoil of a U.S. military strike, added to the frustration or anger among members of Hussein’s inner circle, might provoke a challenge from within, according to sources familiar with the assessment.

The potential political ramifications of the U.S. military action are another major reason that Washington opted to strike hard and fast, officials say. Desert Fox, which U.S. officials acknowledge will be shorter than the two-week-plus strike planned during an earlier run-in with Hussein in November, will nonetheless be as potent, officials say.

“This mission is every bit as robust and in some ways bigger than the mission planned a month ago,” the senior administration official said. A longer-term campaign has effectively been condensed into a shorter period.

“We want Saddam’s protectors and the corps of people around him to see that there is a serious penalty for supporting him and that they will continue to incur penalties the longer he is around,” the official added.

Washington will be poised to strike again, particularly if Iraq acts on any of three fronts: reconstituting weapons of mass destruction, threatening any of its six neighbors or taking military action against the Kurds in Iraq’s north.

“Containment-plus” may carry significant new costs, especially if the United States intends to maintain a higher military deployment of troops and warships in the Persian Gulf region indefinitely.

“We intend to have the forces in place to take additional action if needed,” the senior administration official said.

But some Iraq specialists are concerned that Operation Desert Fox may not be enough to significantly jump-start long-stalled U.S. policy or get any closer to the desired result in Iraq.

“If we don’t inflict enough pain to force [Hussein] to cooperate, he can stand up from the rubble and wave his fist and say he took the best U.S. shot and he’s still not complying. That would be disastrous for the United States and play into the hands of those countries who argue that force doesn’t work,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, an Iraq specialist at National Defense University in Washington.

U.S. officials concede that neither a few days of military strikes nor the beefed-up strategy in containment-plus is likely to undo Hussein’s rule.

“He’s not going to vanish any time soon,” another U.S. policymaker said.

“We won’t see any enormous transformation in the situation when this [operation] is over. Any policy based on containment will take time and a lot of patience,” the policymaker said. “That’s frustrating, but that’s also the reality.”

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First Targets

The first volley of more than 200 sea-launched cruise missiles leveled Saddam Hussein’s military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad and four barracks for special security guards who protect weapons sites, the Pentagon said.

Sources: Defense Department, Associated Press