U.S. Close to Decision on Use of Force Against Iraq

Frustrated by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s repeated refusals to comply with U.N. weapons inspections, the United States is closer to using force against Iraq than at any time since the Persian Gulf War, White House officials said Saturday.

A senior foreign policy advisor to President Clinton said a military strike appears likely “sooner rather than later” if Iraq fails to comply with the weapons inspection program. “ ‘Days’ sounds quicker than is real, but ‘weeks’ sounds slower than is real,” the official said.

“We are certainly sidling up to that,” added the official, who requested anonymity.

After months of obstructing international inspectors, Iraq announced a week ago that it was canceling all cooperation with the U.N.-supervised effort to detect and eliminate its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

“Saddam has posed the most serious challenge to UNSCOM [U.N. Special Commission] since the Gulf War, and the international community is more united than ever since the Gulf War in rejecting this challenge,” the senior official said.

Clinton indicated last week that a military strike could be warranted if Iraq continued its defiance. Saturday’s grim assessments made it clear that administration officials hold out little hope for an Iraqi reversal and are prepared to back up their words with force.

Two senior officials said the administration appears even more willing to undertake military action against Iraq than it was in February, when a threatened airstrike was averted by the intervention of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Annan obtained a promise from Hussein’s government to give U.N. arms inspectors access to sites from which they had been barred. But the agreement subsequently unraveled, prompting the current confrontation.

Clinton was scheduled to meet today at Camp David with National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and CIA Director George J. Tenet to discuss U.S. options in Iraq.

The session was arranged “to brief [Clinton] on the situation and review the status of the consultations” with U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East, according to National Security Council spokesman David Leavy.

Leavy said the president is not expected to make a final decision at today’s meeting about a military offensive.

On Saturday, Berger met with his British and French counterparts in Paris and then conferred with French President Jacques Chirac about the administration’s strategy on Iraq.

Administration officials said they recognize that if the United States uses force in Iraq, the U.N. arms inspectors may never be allowed to resume their work. If that occurs, other methods will be employed to try to restrain Hussein, “rather than letting him neuter UNSCOM,” one official said.

Iraq’s latest display of intransigence coincides with an increasing reluctance on the part of the international community to try to prevent the United States from using force against Hussein, U.S. officials said.

“Even Iraq’s friends have washed their hands of this,” the official said. “Nobody wants to defend Saddam.”

If force is used, the official said, the objectives will be to hamper Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction and to weaken Baghdad’s ability to threaten its neighbors and its citizens.

U.S. officials did not describe the probable targets of a military strike but noted that it is unlikely that Hussein would be killed or removed from power as a result.

Clinton would prefer to see Hussein back down and allow the inspections to resume, the official said, and the consideration of military action does not necessarily signal that the United States has given up on UNSCOM.

“If [Hussein] has made a judgment that he is going to block UNSCOM, we have to take measures to respond to that,” the official said. “It’s not that we are changing our policy because we don’t believe in UNSCOM.”

The latest crisis was provoked a week ago when Hussein’s government said it would cooperate with inspections only if the U.N. Security Council took steps leading to the lifting of sanctions imposed against Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and removed Richard Butler as head of its arms commission.

The United States responded to the ultimatum by pledging to use military force if necessary to ensure compliance with the inspection program. Administration officials have spent the last week consulting with allies in the Mideast and Europe.

The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and 20 other Navy ships are deployed in or near the Persian Gulf, along with about 170 aircraft. Several of the ships carry long-range cruise missiles.

Although Hussein has not yet expelled U.N. inspection teams from Iraq, Reuters reported that 15 arms inspectors and monitors left the country Saturday.

Iraqi officials remained defiant. “We are ready to confront any military strike,” Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh was quoted as saying in Baghdad.

U.S. officials described two basic responses by allies to the prospect of military action against Iraq. Some, particularly the British, are expected to express full support. Others, including the French and the Russians, are reluctant to use force but are not prepared to stand up and defend Iraq.

The confrontation in February divided the United States and its allies, most of whom were reluctant to contemplate military action. It ended when Annan negotiated the return of U.N. inspectors.

U.S. and European officials consider Iraq’s latest action--the blanket refusal to allow inspections--to be a more serious violation of U.N. directives than its decision last winter to place so-called presidential buildings and palaces off limits to inspectors.