The Battle So Far, So Good

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

War is an exercise in the unpredictable and often uncontrollable, following a course that cannot be foreseen hour to hour and leading to consequences that neither side ever intended. Battle scenarios are crisp and clear-cut; actual battles are anything but, and invariably bring surprises. No matter that the war starts on live television. Or that the deadline for combat is set six weeks in advance and is publicized more intensively than any other in history. Or that the attack proceeds in precisely the fashion that had all but officially been proclaimed in advance, with massive air attacks. The unexpected still occurs.

After just three days of combat, the American public had experienced the emotional "ups and downs" that President Bush was quick to warn about. The public mood swung from elation over the overwhelming success of the opening air and missile assault to anxiety after Thursday night's Iraqi missile attack on Israel. It was just beginning to oscillate back toward relief that the Jewish state did not immediately retaliate when a second missile attack hit Saturday morning.

From then on, the suspense steadily increased. Would Israel continue to heed , U.S. and allied pleas not to strike back, or was it being goaded beyond endurance? If it did retaliate, could the U.S. hold the anti-Iraq coalition together, or might some of its Arab members bolt? How much longer would Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, despite days of relentless aerial battering, remain capable of unleashing his long-dreaded chemical and bacteriological weapons? How soon might the U.S. start the ground attack that is still thought necessary to push Saddam's armies out of Kuwait, and how bloody will that eventual land war prove to be?

One surprise was surprise itself. After all the months that the war drums had been beating, the opening air and missile onslaught achieved almost complete tactical surprise. American weapons that had never been fired in anger worked as well as if the war were some elaborate training movie. Initial Iraqi resistance was so weak that Air Force Captain Genther Drummond, who took part in the opening assault, remarked, "It was as if we had no adversary." The few unexpected developments were favorable: only scattered anti-American demonstrations broke out in the Arab world rather than the massive pro-Iraqi riots that some had feared. As late as Friday noon, George Bush felt compelled to issue another warning against public "euphoria." Said the President: "There will be losses. There will be obstacles along the way. And war is never cheap or easy."

BEFORE THE FIRE

The basic decisions that led to war were probably taken by Bush and Saddam within a few days of Iraq's seizure of Kuwait last Aug. 2. Only after 6 1/2 hours of stonewalling by Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz when he met U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in Geneva on Jan. 9, however, did the White House finally give up hope of inducing Saddam to disgorge Kuwait by any means short of war. But as late as Tuesday, Jan. 15, the day the United Nations Security Council had fixed back in November as the deadline for Iraq to get out of Kuwait or face war, White House officials were giving reporters and some Congressmen a different impression. Saddam, these officials seemed to be suggesting, might have two days beyond the deadline, or even more, to stave off an attack by beginning a pullout. Kuwaiti sources believe that Saddam got the same message from Arab intermediaries, who were unwittingly fed the disinformation by the U.S.

Saddam would have done better to consult Domino's Pizza, which put out a warning at 5 a.m. Wednesday that war was likely later that day. Domino's had $ noticed record delivery orders the previous night from the White House and Pentagon, presumably to fuel officials through crisis meetings. In fact, around 11 a.m. Tuesday during a meeting in the Oval Office with his top national-security advisers, Bush signed a directive authorizing the attack unless there was a last-minute diplomatic breakthrough. That afternoon Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney signed an "execute" order putting the directive into effect.

On Wednesday Bush and Baker notified congressional leaders, ambassadors of allies and others that the attack was coming that night; former President Richard Nixon was told around noon. Baker called Alexander Bessmertnykh, the new Soviet Foreign Minister, in Moscow an hour before the assault. Bessmertnykh immediately told President Mikhail Gorbachev, who telephoned Bush to propose a final Soviet warning to its former ally to get out of Kuwait or else. Bush had no objection, so Gorbachev composed a letter that the Soviet ambassador to Baghdad was instructed to deliver to Saddam immediately. Too late. The ambassador could not find the Iraqi President and had to hand the letter to Foreign Minister Aziz -- in a bunker, after the attack had begun.

BOMBS IN THE DARK

Previous generations of pilots had spoken of a "bomber's moon." But that was in an era of what would now be considered low-tech conflict. Today the ideal condition for an air raid is a pitch-black night. Infrared devices and laser- guided bombs enable pilots to see and hit their targets through inky darkness; moonlight would serve only to make their planes more visible to antiaircraft gunners. Jan. 15 was the first of three moonless nights in Iraq and Kuwait. No good; the U.S. considered the deadline for using force to be midnight American Eastern Standard Time, and that was 8 a.m. Jan. 16 over Baghdad, after sunup. The following night was the earliest time when both political and astronomical conditions would be ripe for war.

Just before 1 a.m. in the Middle East, pool reporters at U.S. air bases in Saudi Arabia heard and felt the ground-shaking thunder of wave after wave of jets taking off. The planes headed north toward Kuwait and Iraq. At about the same time, more jets were winging off six U.S. carriers in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Eventually, about 2,000 planes of the U.S. and six allied nations -- Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the Kuwaiti government-in- exile -- hit targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait (though the French, - independent even when submitting to American command in war, would bomb only Iraqi airfields and forces in Kuwait).

The outside world got the first news from Western television correspondents at the Al Rasheed Hotel in downtown Baghdad, who told of hearing air-raid sirens and seeing tracer bullets and antiaircraft bursts lighting up the black skies. For a while, though, no bomb explosions could be heard; George Bush, listening to and watching TV in the White House, started to get a bit edgy. Finally, a noise that was indisputably a bomb blast could be heard over an open telephone line to correspondents at just about 7 p.m. EST -- 3 a.m. Thursday in Baghdad. "Just the way it was scheduled," noted Bush, who dispatched spokesman Marlin Fitzwater to tell reporters, "The liberation of Kuwait has begun."

Two hours later the President went on TV to deliver a speech that had been in preparation for weeks. His manner was somber and determined. The U.S. goal, he said, "is not the conquest of Iraq; it is the liberation of Kuwait." But in the process, he indicated, the anti-Iraq coalition would destroy the offensive military machine that made Iraq a menace to its neighbors. Said Bush: "We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein's nuclear-bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical-weapons facilities."

FEEBLE RESPONSE

By that time, the destruction was well under way. Pilots returning from the first attack described an awesome pattern of flashing multicolored lights -- some antiaircraft bursts, some bombs -- brightening the dark ground and skies. One after another likened it to a Fourth of July fireworks display or a Christmas tree. A British television correspondent standing on a sixth-floor balcony of Al Rasheed Hotel reported a weird sight: a U.S. cruise missile whizzing past at eye level and slamming into the Iraqi Defense Ministry nearby.

The pinpoint accuracy of the attacks was spectacular. At a Friday briefing in Saudi Arabia, Air Force Lieut. General Charles Horner showed videotapes of two laser-guided bombs sailing through the open doors of a bunker in which an Iraqi Scud missile was stored, and a third plopping down the rooftop air shaft of a tall building in Baghdad -- apparently the headquarters of the Iraqi air force -- and then blowing off the top floors. Bombs and missiles also hit other targets around and even in the heart of Baghdad -- Saddam's presidential palace, for one -- while apparently doing little damage to civilian lives or < property. Though Baghdad's ambassador to Japan said many Iraqi civilians had been killed, Western correspondents wandering around the city after the raids could find no sign that the report was true.

Even though the Iraqi military had supposedly been on maximum alert for several days and the U.S.-led alliance had made no secret of its intent to open any war with a massive and continuing aerial campaign, the Iraqis nonetheless appear to have been taken by surprise, or at least to have been unprepared for the fury of the assault. How could that be possible?

One theory is that Saddam Hussein genuinely believed the U.S. was bluffing. Another is that the Iraqi leader had little idea of the speed, stealth and power of a modern aerial and missile attack. Said a Bush adviser: "We weren't entirely sure how well some of this high-tech stuff would work in combat, so it's no wonder that Saddam might be surprised." Or perhaps Iraq simply lacked the technical ability to fend off such an offensive.

That is not an easy task even for the most technologically sophisticated nation. A modern assault -- and the one on Iraq appears to have followed this pattern -- begins with an attack on the enemy's air-defense capabilities. Ground-hugging cruise missiles, flying too low for radar to detect easily, hit targets initially judged too dangerous for manned aircraft to handle. In the assault on Baghdad, some of the first blows came from Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by ships far out in the Persian Gulf. As the first explosions rocked the city, Iraqi antiaircraft fire was directed into the sky at planes that were not there -- yet. Stealth fighters also sneaked past radar to join the initial attack. Then high-flying aircraft, some launching missiles from far off, jammed or confused enemy radar and took out some antiaircraft guns, interceptor planes and airfields. Finally, when a path was cleared, bombers and fighter-bombers attacked at lower altitudes for greater accuracy.

Last week it all worked. After the first raids, U.S. and allied planes pounded targets throughout Kuwait and Iraq around the clock, not so much in waves as in a steady stream. Drawing targets from a 600-page daily computerized assignment book, they were concentrating at week's end on missile sites, command and control units, troop complexes and artillery sites. They also hit Baghdad again before dawn Saturday, knocking out the city's electricity and water and destroying the central telecommunications facility. By Sunday they had flown more than 4,000 sorties (one plane flying one mission). About 80% were said to have been effective; most of the other 20%, U.S. briefing officers said, were unable to identify their targets well enough to avoid civilian injuries.

Yet casualties among the allied airmen were phenomenally light: six U.S., two British, one Italian and one Kuwaiti plane downed as of early Sunday; nine American crewmen, four British, two Italians and one Kuwaiti officially listed as missing in action (some surely were killed). Iraqi antiaircraft fire was in some cases heavy, but inaccurate, and few planes rose to challenge the attackers.

Still another theory was that Saddam might be deliberately saving some of his aircraft and missiles to strike back later. If so, it was a risky strategy. For example, the Iraqi dictator might have been able to save many of his planes by hiding them in hardened underground bunkers; the U.S. has been bombing those bunkers, but is uncertain how many of the planes inside them it has been able to destroy. According to a White House official, it hardly matters, "because now they can't take off. We've cratered almost all the runways." Later assessments, though, were that a significant part of the Iraqi air force had escaped to bases in the north of the country, from which they could still rise to join the fight. In any case, Saddam had enough missiles left to pose a major political, if not military, threat.

POPGUN RETALIATION

From the very first, the Iraqi dictator had loudly proclaimed that an important strategy for winning a war was to strike Israel, probably with missiles releasing clouds of poison gas. The idea was to goad Jerusalem into striking back, thus enabling Saddam to claim that the war now pitted the Arab nation against Israel, its American ally and Arab stooges. His hope was that Egypt and Syria, rather than appear to be fighting in defense of Israel, would pull out of the anti-Iraq coalition or switch sides, and even Saudi Arabia would come under heavy pressure to end the battle.

The U.S. took the threat seriously enough to beg Israel in advance not to launch a pre-emptive attack. Washington promised in return to make the Scud missiles in western Iraq, the ones targeted on Israel, a primary target of the first alliance bombing raids. They were hit, and hard, at the start of the war. As the first 24 hours ticked by without an assault, hope grew that Saddam had been prevented from trying his cynical gambit.

^ No such luck. Early Friday morning, air-raid sirens went off through much of Israel. The government radio ordered all citizens to don the gas masks that had been distributed earlier and move into the sealed rooms that every household had been urged to prepare. Then blasts began rocking Tel Aviv and Haifa. Early reports said at least one missile warhead had released nerve gas and that a hospital in Tel Aviv was receiving gassed victims.

Not so. By Israeli count eight Scuds hit Tel Aviv, Haifa and the Ramallah area on Friday, but none released gas. They injured about a dozen people but killed no one. Four elderly Israelis and a three-year-old girl, however, either suffocated inside gas masks that had been improperly adjusted or died of heart attacks. Despite the fatalities, that amounted to a popgun attack in contrast to the kind of assault Israel and the U.S. had feared Saddam would mount.

Washington and London immediately began a strenuous effort to persuade Israel not to retaliate, and the Arab allies not to abandon the coalition if it did. The U.S. stepped up its aerial search for Scud missiles that could be fired from hard-to-locate mobile launchers. Most if not all the Scuds launched from fixed sites -- that is, silos -- were believed to have been taken out in the first attack. Within hours, American planes had destroyed six of the truck launchers, three with missiles inside. One other Scud missile had been launched earlier against Saudi Arabia, but was blown up in midair by a Patriot antimissile missile. That was another technological triumph, the first known time that an attack missile had been destroyed by a defensive missile in combat.

On Saturday morning three more missiles fell on Tel Aviv. This time 10 people were injured, but again no one was killed. President Bush and British Prime Minister John Major separately telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Bush at 3 a.m. Washington time, to plead again for restraint. After the Israeli Cabinet met in a concrete bunker on Saturday, the government once more assured Washington that it would not retaliate now. The U.S. installed in Israel two batteries of the Patriot antimissiles, manned by American servicemen, the first time the U.S. had participated directly in Israel's defense. The government said it would see whether that provided sufficient protection.

If not? There was no reason to think that the Israelis could do any better at finding and destroying the remaining Scuds than the U.S. could. But politically the Jerusalem government might not be able to afford appearing to do nothing on its own to protect its citizens. The U.S. hoped that Arab allies would overlook Israeli retaliation if it were on an eye-for-an-eye scale, rather than the traditional hit-you-twice-as-hard assault.

THE NEXT STEP

Whatever is done to and by Israel, the last act of the war is almost certain to be a ground attack on the Iraqi troops and tanks dug in deeply in Kuwait. So far there have been only minor skirmishes on the surface, though one on Saturday yielded the first known prisoners of the war. A dozen Iraqis were captured when the frigate U.S.S. Nicholas and some helicopters joined to assault and "neutralize" Kuwaiti drilling platforms in the Persian Gulf that the Iraqis had converted into antiaircraft positions. There were also some exchanges of fire between Iraqis and U.S. Marines across the Kuwaiti-Saudi border and some casualties, but no sizable battles.

The air campaign will continue and perhaps intensify for days or even weeks, employing craft ranging from Apache helicopters to B-52s and all sizes in between. Once the U.S. and allied forces have won complete control of the skies -- at week's end they were close but not quite there -- they are likely to hammer ever harder at such targets as supply lines and troop concentrations.

There is even some hope that the air war might make a ground war unnecessary -- that Iraqi troops whose supplies, communications and, in particular, water had been cut off by the air strikes would surrender en masse. But that is a rather wan hope. Says a senior U.S. commander: "It would be marvelous if the Air Force could do it alone, but it has never happened before, and I doubt it will now. Ultimately, this war will be won on the ground."

Massive movements of U.S., British and other troops led to some speculation last week that the ground campaign was about to begin. Once it does start, the battle is expected to last four to eight weeks. And they could be very bloody weeks. Saddam's strategy has always been to exhaust his enemies in a ground campaign, betting that Iraq will be willing to absorb heavy casualties far longer than the U.S.

The Iraqis have dug in all along the Kuwaiti-Saudi border, constructing trenches and other fortifications, two miles wide in spots, with gaps between designed to lure attackers into channels where they can be subjected to withering cross fire. Some of the trenches can be filled with water; oil can be poured on top of the water and set ablaze. Behind the trenches are mobile reserves and other units, including both tanks and artillery, that can be moved up quickly to fill breaches in the line or counterattack against a breakthrough.

The probable U.S. and allied attack strategy: U.S. and Arab troops may stage frontal assaults to keep Iraqi troops pinned down and launch a secondary thrust along the Persian Gulf coast. But the main assault could be a left hook: an attack around the western tip of Kuwait into Iraq proper, looping back to cut off the dug-in troops. As for tactics, the primary way to breach the fortifications would be simply to try to blast a way through with aerial bombs. If that does not work, combat engineers would use "line charges" -- bombs thrown out on cables to form a string of close-together explosions -- to break through obstacles. Tanks fitted with bulldozer blades would then plow a way through craters. Bridges might be thrown across trenches. Artillery would lay down a "box barrage," a three-sided pattern of fire to prevent the Iraqis from attacking U.S. troops moving through a breach in the lines (the breach would be the fourth side of the box).

Would it work? Eventually, almost certainly, given the firepower that U.S. and allied forces can bring to bear on the ground as well as from the air. But at what cost? Nobody can tell. The first stage of the air war was remarkable for its light allied casualties (nobody has any idea what Iraqi casualties are to date). Just maybe, the ground war might be a surprise for the same reason. Or perhaps for exactly the opposite reason. War remains, as ever, an exercise in the unpredictable.

With reporting by Ron Ben-Yishai/Tel Aviv, William Dowell/Saudi Arabia and Jay Peterzell/Washington