No End Is in Sight to U.S. Air Campaign Over Iraq

Initially envisioned as a simple enforcement action, the near-daily assaults by U.S. warplanes in Iraq are rapidly escalating into a war of attrition that could go on as long as the Arab world and the American public continue to give their silent assent.

The low-intensity campaign that began Dec. 28 already has become the longest sustained U.S. air operation since the Vietnam War. By Pentagon accounts, it has taken out one-fifth of Iraq’s long-range air-defense missile system, bashed command posts, communications centers and other equipment and, by some reports, increased stresses within Saddam Hussein’s army and country.

U.S. defense officials have twice expanded the strikes to encompass new categories of targets within the Western-imposed “no-fly” zones covering part of northern and all of southern Iraq. On Monday, American planes executed the heaviest one-day bombing attack of the two-month effort.

U.S. officials say they may broaden their target list yet again if Iraqi forces continue to engage in threatening acts. They say they wouldn’t hesitate to enter the airspace over central Iraq--an area not under the protection of the no-fly zones--to retaliate if Iraqi forces achieved their primary goal of downing a U.S. or British plane.

“We’re using more bombs, striking more targets. You can see we’re serious,” one military official said.

U.S. officials don’t rule out the possibility that they could ultimately destroy all of Hussein’s air-defense equipment if the Iraqi president continues to invite retaliation by challenging the Western warplanes.

The surprising lack of public reaction to the recurring strikes “has won the [U.S.] government some time,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, a Rand Corp. analyst who was a top Pentagon official during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. “But is this sustainable? That’s the question.”

In fact, even as they issue tough warnings, U.S. officials are trying to limit the visibility of the operation lest they antagonize Arab nations that now appear to be ambivalent about Western forces attacking their neighbor.

For this reason, as well as to maintain operational secrecy, Pentagon officials have provided skimpier details of the strikes than during the four-day bombardment of Iraq in mid-December.

They have disclosed the targets and ordnance involved but have shied away from divulging details of the damage inflicted--and have said nothing about casualties. They haven’t released “gun camera” video footage of U.S. planes striking Iraqi defenses, as they did during the Dec. 16-19 air campaign called Operation Desert Fox.

U.S. officials speak of “enforcement actions” when referring to the attacks. They never call the strikes a “campaign,” much less a “war.”

“This is self-defense,” Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday. “Our primary goal is to protect pilots who are in danger every day.”

Since late December, U.S. and British aircraft have made more than 100 strikes in the no-fly zones, which were created after the Gulf War to prevent Hussein from using aircraft to attack Kurdish dissidents in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south.

After Operation Desert Fox, Iraqi planes began routinely darting into the prohibited zones, and Iraqi military radar began regularly “locking on” to U.S. and British planes, moves that are considered inherently threatening.

At first, U.S. warplanes were limited to striking the air-defense equipment that had threatened them. But in late January, officials gave them leeway to strike other air-defense equipment. Last week, officials authorized hitting military command centers not directly tied to the air-defense infrastructure.

Officials say they won’t hesitate to hit “dual-use” equipment, such as a communications facility in northern Iraq that was bombed Sunday. The facility controlled an Iraqi oil pipeline but also reportedly handled military communications.

The Pentagon has sought to put the best face on the strikes, which rely on Navy aircraft from the carrier Carl Vinson as well as ground-based planes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

U.S. officials say Hussein’s command-and-control system has been hurt, as well as large parts of his air-defense system. They note that the Iraqi military pulled many surface-to-air missile batteries out of the no-fly zones in January to protect them.

They say Hussein’s frustration has been readily apparent as his troops and civilian population have watched him take a pounding--while inflicting not a single casualty in return.

Officials point to signs of Hussein’s distress: He has angrily lashed out at his Arab neighbors for permitting the U.S. campaign and has shuffled his military hierarchy.

They say they hope that Hussein’s humiliation may cause his military to question his leadership--and perhaps try to unseat him.

Yet while U.S. officials talk up this policy, they also acknowledge privately that they have little wiggle room. They must strike back to preserve the no-fly zones, yet they are sharply circumscribed in how far they can go without offending Iraq’s neighbors.

In fact, the campaign so far has depended heavily on the remarkable lack of attention it has received in the United States and from Iraq’s neighbors.

The neighboring regimes have been satisfied to watch the bombardment because Hussein has alienated them by urging their subjects to rise up against them, U.S. officials say.

In the United States, meanwhile, the bombardment has drawn almost no comment from Capitol Hill, except from a dissenting minority that wants the Clinton administration to take even stronger military action.

“Some people here are unhappy, but they realize that if they say anything, the press will ask them: ‘So what kind of Iraq policy should we have?’ And they don’t have an answer,” said a senior House staff member.

U.S. officials acknowledge that this apathy might not continue.

In congressional briefings, military officials have confessed their rising concern that a U.S. pilot could be downed, or U.S. bombs or missiles could go astray--as happened in January--to inflict a large number of civilian casualties.

In the United States, the downing of a U.S. pilot could trigger demands for retaliation, and perhaps a sharp escalation of the air campaign. Large civilian casualties could strain Arab tolerance for the operation.

At the United Nations, Benon Sevan, executive director of the humanitarian program in Iraq, said he is “deeply concerned” about the bombing-related interruption of the flow of oil for export.

“Given the depressed price of oil and the state of Iraq’s oil industry, there’s currently a $900-million gap between the revenue expected and what’s needed to fund the humanitarian program,” Sevan said. “This shortfall is already cutting deeply into the allocations for water and sanitation, agriculture and education.”

The U.N. official said a pipeline that carries half the oil Iraq is allowed to export was shut down Sunday night as a result of damage to the communications repeater station bombed by allied planes. Sevan said prospects for an early resumption of the flow of oil faded Tuesday with reports that a second communications facility also had been damaged.

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