White House Takes Case for a Strike at Iraq to U.S. Public

Offering the Clinton administration’s most detailed explanation to date of the crisis with Iraq, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger declared Friday that Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapon capabilities constitute a direct security threat to the American people.

Berger, President Clinton’s most senior foreign policy advisor, also said that if Hussein attempted to rebuild his weapons-making capabilities in the wake of a U.S. military attack, the United States would strike again.

That represented the first time an administration official has issued such a warning.

“We will be prepared to act again if we have evidence [Hussein] is trying to rebuild his weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities,” Berger said in a lengthy briefing to reporters at the National Press Club.

His comments--illustrated with charts and peppered with details of the Iraqi president’s past actions and stark images of his present threat--marked the centerpiece of the administration’s concerted campaign to prepare the American people for military action against Iraq.

As part of the effort, Berger also sought to ready the public for the prospect of both U.S. military casualties and television images of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians if diplomacy fails and armed attacks are launched.

“Even the best-prepared and best-equipped forces will suffer losses,” he said. “But should force become necessary, the safety of our men and women in uniform will be President Clinton’s top priority.”

In Baghdad, Iraq’s deputy foreign minister delivered a point-by-point rebuttal to Berger’s speech and said the Clinton administration is itching for a fight with Iraq.

“This [U.S.] campaign is being conducted on the basis of lies and deception and should not be taken by anyone in the world as being a justifiable basis for war,” Riyad Kaisi said. “We are a nation that wants peace.”

At the United Nations, diplomatic maneuvering intended to head off a U.S.-led attack intensified.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan signaled progress in the negotiations by citing “large areas of common ground” among the key U.N. members concerned with the issue--the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia.

He also announced that he is sending a team to Baghdad to survey the eight “presidential sites” that are at the heart of the dispute. That visit could presage a trip to Baghdad by Annan himself in what would be seen as a final push for a peaceful solution.

Hopes for a resolution now center on persuading Iraq and the United States to agree to a French-backed proposal that would open the presidential sites to U.N. weapons inspectors accompanied by diplomatic escorts, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. It is intended to preserve the U.N. inspection program while giving Hussein a face-saving way to retreat from his hard line.

Berger left open the possibility that the U.S. may deliver Hussein a clear deadline for ending his standoff with the U.N., after which military strikes would begin if the Iraqi leader does not back down. He said no decision had been made on such a move.

“There are some diplomatic initiatives underway, in the U.N. and elsewhere, that have to play themselves out,” he said. “And I will not answer, or cannot answer at this point, the question of whether or not there will be some specific deadline imposed.”

Prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War sparked by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, then-President Bush set a specific date, and bombing began that night.

*

Defense officials said Clinton tentatively plans to review war preparations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday and may then give a speech laying out the U.S. position on the Iraq standoff.

Also, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin announced that Berger will travel with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen on Wednesday to Ohio State University in Columbus for a public meeting on the crisis.

“The president’s foreign policy team will participate in a live discussion with the American people about the gravity of the situation in Iraq,” Rubin said.

He said Albright will then go on to Nashville for a second public meeting on the crisis.

The purpose of the trip is “to talk to the American people about the stakes in the Iraqi crisis and what would be the potential need to use military force if diplomacy fails,” Rubin said.

Clinton too spoke out on Iraq on Friday, saying, “We don’t believe it is acceptable, if diplomacy fails, to walk away.”

The administration’s public relations offensive comes amid criticism, including from some congressional Republicans, that Clinton has failed to inform the American people properly about the crisis and this country’s stake in it. Some doubt that an attack on Iraq is morally justified. Others fear airstrikes without a wholehearted effort to depose Hussein--a commitment the administration so far has shied away from--may only lead to a political dead end.

In a letter to Clinton made public Friday, all seven active U.S. Roman Catholic cardinals and the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops urged Washington to renew diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.

“In our considered judgment, this action by the United States could be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to justify,” the letter said.

Political analysts, meanwhile, read the administration’s new efforts to present the case against Hussein publicly as one more indicator that diplomatic alternatives for a peaceful resolution to the crisis are fast running out.

Annan has become the chief facilitator of the push for peace in recent days, speaking by telephone to Baghdad, Washington and other capitals from his office at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The secretary-general announced Friday that Staffan de Mistura of Sweden, a Rome-based U.N. official, and two Austrian surveyors he did not identify will arrive in Baghdad on Sunday to “define the maps of the eight presidential sites” that Iraq has placed off limits to U.N. weapons inspectors, the move that triggered the current conflict.

Diplomatic sources said the survey will be a preliminary step in a French plan to construct a new procedure for inspecting the compounds, which contain Hussein’s residences, or palaces, as well as hundreds of warehouses, garages, bunkers and other facilities. It is the latter that the U.N. inspectors are most interested in as potential hiding places for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or any records of illegal arms programs.

Under the French plan, the regular U.N. inspectors, accompanied by two or three diplomats, would have complete access to all nonresidential structures. A new, still undefined inspection program would be used in the residential buildings. The survey ordered by Annan will determine which buildings belong in which category.

One diplomat who has been monitoring the talks said Britain has signed on to this program in what he described as a significant shift. However, that could not be confirmed by British representatives, and more significantly, the U.S. and Iraq have yet to agree.

Despite that significant gap, Annan’s aides showed the first signs of optimism in weeks that there may be a diplomatic way out of what the secretary-general has described as the corner that Baghdad has painted itself into.

“I’m skeptical but not hopeless about this,” Berger said of various efforts to end the crisis peacefully.

In his press club remarks, Berger drew a direct link between Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and the security of the American public.

“The spread of these weapons to outlaw states, and from them to terrorist and international criminals, is one of the most dangerous security threats our people will face over the next generation,” Berger said.

Evoking the image of the 1995 poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway by a Japanese cult group, Berger added: “I think the American people see the threat of biological and chemical weapons as a serious threat that we have to stand up to.”

Berger said he is confident that airstrikes alone would achieve the initial U.S. military goals of reducing Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons capabilities and his ability to threaten neighboring states--a goal some military analysts have questioned.

“I am convinced that we will do significant harm,” he said. “We can’t destroy everything, [but] we can have a real impact.”

*

He also sketched for the first time elements of a U.S. strategy that would follow an initial set of airstrikes, including continued economic sanctions, enforcement of a large “no-fly” zone over much of the country, where Hussein’s military aircraft are prohibited from flying, and if Hussein begins to rebuild weapons of mass destruction, further airstrikes.

However, he rejected calls made by some, including members of Congress, that the only permanent solution to the crisis is the ouster of Hussein and that the United States should include that as a goal of any military campaign against Iraq.

“The costs and risks associated with such a venture are high and not essential to achieving our strategic interests: containing the threat Iraq poses to the region,” he said. “It would require a major land campaign and risk large losses of our soldiers.”

Berger countered critics who claim that the U.S. has little support among allies for military strikes, listing 11 nations outside the Persian Gulf that he said are prepared to provide forces, bases or other help in the effort.

“That list, I should say, is growing every day,” he said.

Times staff writers Craig Turner at the United Nations and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Heating Up

President Clinton and his top advisors said Friday that Iraq’s weapon capabilities constitute a direct security threat to the United States. American forces, meanwhile, stood ready in the region.

The U.S. has rejected Iraq’s offer to open eight disputed presidential sites to weapons experts and diplomats, saying it was too limited.