The Allies A War Machine That Works -- So Far

By JAMES WALSH

Four Saudi jet fighters were flying patrol near the Kuwaiti frontier last week when their radios crackled an alert. Peeling off, they intercepted a pair of Iraqi fighters heading toward gulf waters where British warships were operating. Captain Ayedh al-Shamrani swerved his U.S.-built F-15 behind the Mirage F-1s and shot both out of the sky. Returning to base in Dhahran, the Saudi pilot received a hero's welcome. Said the modest Shamrani: "It was my day."

In the long run-up to war with Iraq, U.S. allies often seemed to be little more than hitchhikers on an American battlewagon. Assembling in the sandy arena was the most motley mixture of nationalities and flags on one front since the Napoleonic Wars -- and most of it seemed intended to make a political rather than a military statement. As sitzkrieg turned to blitzkrieg, however, the 28-country alliance proved to be more than international window dressing. Within 24 hours the combined effort made a public believer out of General Colin Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It seems to me," he said, "the coalition is holding together rather well."

Holding together, yes, but how useful militarily? Captain Shamrani's double kill of the Iraqi jets earned at least a symbolic success for Saudi Arabia's military image. Britain's Royal Air Force squadrons scored something more, taking on extremely hazardous missions that in just over one week of war cost them eight crewmen and six of their 36 gulf-deployed Tornado fighter-bombers. French flyers, having arrived to a frosty welcome, soon won respect, and Kuwaiti pilots pulled their weight as well, putting invaluable knowledge of their country to use in bombing military targets there.

But the alliance remained only in its shakedown stage, and many of its parts still seemed decorative. As of late last week, U.S. forces made up more than 60% of the coalition's 675,000 active personnel, among them deployments ranging from 36,000 crack Egyptian infantrymen down to some Afghan mujahedin guerrillas and 150 troops from Honduras. What the smaller land contingents -- as well as the token few warships sent by countries like Australia, Spain and Greece -- could accomplish that the alliance's core partners could not remained unanswered by the Pentagon. Even such a muscular U.S. ally as Italy, moreover, kept its participation to a minimum. Said Sergeant Robert Castellano, 26, a U.S. airman: "We look at our troop strength and we look at the others, and we feel they're not doing enough."

What everyone agreed on, however, was that Britain was doing more than its fair share. While American aircraft typically attacked at altitudes above the reach of small-caliber Iraqi antiaircraft fire, the R.A.F. Tornadoes braved what pilots called "curtains of death" in flying as low as 15 m above enemy airfields. The Tornadoes' special mission involved dropping the JP-233 cluster bomb, a powerful runway-cratering weapon. Like the plane, the bomb was developed as part of the NATO strategy to counter possible attack by Soviet forces by striking at air bases deep in the hinterland. Each JP-233 spreads 30 runway-cratering bomblets and 215 delayed-action mines devised to explode once engineers emerge to repair the field. In the view of British commanders, the bomb proved effective in bottling up the Iraqi air force. But late last week, the R.A.F. discontinued those missions in favor of using higher-flying Buccaneer bombers, saying the destruction of Iraqi runways had been completed. The Tornado pilots must have breathed easier.

The R.A.F.'s Battle of Britain-style valor turned out to be matched in courage by their even fewer French comrades. After Paris gave the green light for combat missions into Iraq, France's airmen impressed coalition partners with their daredeviltry on similar low-flying missions, like taking out a munitions depot near Kuwait City believed to be stocked with French-made Exocet missiles. Later, French Jaguar fighter-bombers crossed into Iraq on three consecutive days to strike Republican Guard troops. Until President Francois Mitterrand declared that "the military-industrial complex of Iraq must naturally be destroyed," Paris had hinted that its planes would hit targets only in occupied Kuwait.

Less successful was Italy's small force of 10 Tornadoes. On their first combat operation since World War II, the Italians scrubbed all sorties but one because of mid-air refueling troubles caused by bad weather. The lone craft that proceeded with its mission went missing. Later, Captain Maurizio Cocciolone, the pilot, turned up on Iraqi TV as a prisoner of war. A retired Italian general, Luigi Caligaris, defended the pilots and blamed successive governments for deliberately sapping the military's strength. Said he: "You cannot improvise military capability when the time comes." Subsequent sorties fared better, but Italians remained deeply ambivalent about the war.

They were not alone. Japan's doubts over its proper contribution flared anew when Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's government approved $9 billion more in aid as well as the dispatch of military aircraft to rescue gulf evacuees. The plan to send military planes abroad roused bitter Diet protests over a possible violation of Japan's war-renouncing constitution.

The coalition's future military cohesion remained iffy. As Washington defense analyst Gordon Adams saw it, coordinating an air war was child's play compared with a ground offensive calling for much quicker decisions in a confused setting. How would the allies perform? "While they are all said to be frontline troops," said Adams, "the only way we'll really know anything about them is to wait and see how they react when the land war begins."

Britain's 1st Armored Division is counted on to punch a hole in the enemy front line. The 10,000 French troops -- including Foreign Legion veterans familiar with desert terrain and what one French expert calls "the Arab mind" -- may prove invaluable. Alliance commanders agree that Saudi Arabia's 32,000-man infantry force will be the first over the line if an invasion of Kuwait is required. They also believe that Egypt's 36,000 and Syria's 19,000 ground troops, backed by strong tank formations, pack an effective punch. But the jury remained out on how well they would deliver it.

Some ominous political signals came from Egypt last week. Though most Egyptians have no love for Saddam Hussein and would cheerfully see the Iraqi dictator gone, growing protests from pan-Arabist ideologues and Islamic hard- + liners put President Hosni Mubarak on the defensive. Still, observers believed Mubarak's army would measure up. "Egypt will be fighting," said a Western diplomat, "to liberate Kuwait, not to go into Iraq."

Complex as it is, the multinational machine has demonstrated that it has smooth working parts, even if some contribute less than others. Beyond military strengths, it carries important symbolic weight. If nothing else, the sea of flags surrounding Saddam is visible proof that, politically at least, he really has gone to war with the world.

With reporting by Lara Marlowe/Dhahran and David Aikman/Cairo, with other bureaus