A Spanking for Saddam

By Jill Smolowe

GEORGE BUSH IS A MAN OF CAUtion, but not infinitely so. Saddam Hussein sees violence as a useful tool. The two were destined to fight again. With one eye on the history books and another on the sandglass marking the final hours of his presidency, Bush seemed determined to show Saddam Hussein one last time that he was not to be trifled with. Saddam, fully relishing the irony that his own reign would outlast that of his chief nemesis, could not resist tweaking Bush. This time Bush had no patience for the game and ordered a bombing raid that -- at least briefly -- forced Saddam to retreat.

Beyond the personal animosity, though, Iraq and the U.S. are engaged in a crucial showdown over international order. Even as Iraqis mopped up after an allied bombing raid, Washington and Baghdad exchanged fresh threats about whether Iraq was or was not complying with U.N. requirements. Instead of retreating Iraq challenged U.S. planes over the weekend in the northern no-fly zone. After the U.S. shot down a threatening MiG-29 Washington hinted at stronger retaliation. Coming just days before Bush was to vacate the Oval Office, it was impossible to ignore the raw personal edge that drove both leaders' actions. But together they have bequeathed to Bill Clinton his own tough question: What happens next?

The allied air strike was intended to send Saddam a political admonition to reform his behavior, rather than deliver a crippling military blow. The modest raid by 110 U.S., British and French warplanes on four missile sites and four command posts in southern Iraq was, as one U.S. official noted, "a spanking, not a beating" -- and an inefficient one at that. The attack destroyed only one of the missile batteries the U.S. claimed were threatening allied aircraft in the skies over Iraq, although officials insisted that all but one of the eight targets were at least temporarily put out of action. More important, they argued, the bombing demonstrated allied resolve to enforce U.N. restrictions imposed after the Gulf War. Based on past experience, Saddam may back down for a time, but the raid neither damaged his hold on power nor diminished the problem he poses for the incoming Clinton Administration. "This business with Saddam," said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, "is not finished, I can assure you."

The President-elect did not need the reminder. Dipping his toe into the Iraqi morass the day of the raid, he stumbled. In an interview with the New York Times, he called the raid "the right thing to do," then seemed to open a small window for Saddam: "If you want a different relationship with me, you could begin by upholding the U.N. requirements to change your behavior. I'm not obsessed with the man." The softer rhetoric set off speculation that he might ease U.S. policy toward Baghdad. Clinton angrily denounced what he called a misinterpretation, and the tenor of the whole interview indicates that he has no intention of departing from Bush's hard line.

But in the world of diplomacy, where perception and precise language are everything, the incident pointed up Clinton's unsure handling of foreign affairs. British officials were particularly leery of one Clinton remark: "I always tell everybody, I'm a Baptist; I believe in deathbed conversions." Said a senior British diplomat: "We don't need a Southern Baptist attitude, as we had with Jimmy Carter. We need pragmatism."

For Bush, the aim was more than a last-minute potshot at his most intransigent rival. He wanted to send a message to Saddam that even though he is about to leave office, the Gulf War coalition remains firm in its demand that Iraq comply with U.N. resolutions. Given the military options available, the restraint of the operation shows the pains Bush took to ensure that his key allies, Britain and France, would sign on and to engage the support of the entire U.N. Security Council. By not overreacting to an escalating series of provocations by Saddam, the Western leaders reassured their electorates that they need not fear resumption of a full-scale war. Bush's moves were also calibrated to enlist the support of Arab allies, most important Saudi Arabia, which are wary of another divisive confrontation.

What Bush probably wanted most was what he has failed to achieve all along: to provoke the Iraqi people into taking matters into their own hands. This raid alone had little chance of accomplishing that. But "if Saddam goes on playing the same game, he can expect the same response," says a British diplomat. "We hope some of those around him will see that the only sensible alternative is to get rid of him."

Saddam's main motive, however, is survival. "Saddam has convinced himself he won the Gulf War," says Laurie Mylroie, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "He wants to mark his victory by humiliating Bush in the closing days of his Administration." Saddam also may have been testing Clinton's mettle by warning that he, Saddam, was capable of stirring up trouble to divert the President-elect from his domestic agenda. Upstaging Clinton's Inaugural preparations was hardly a gambit to win and influence Friends of Bill.

But Saddam's primary audience was elsewhere. His chest-pounding provocations were a classic barbarians-at-the-gate strategy, designed to deflect attention from the dismal economic situation at home, heightened by U.N. sanctions, that has left Iraqis hunting daily for food. His police apparatus has reasserted its grip since the war, so citizens harbor few doubts that Saddam is still in charge. But he may have cause to worry about his 400,000-man armed forces. Kurds and other opponents have spread stories of anti-Saddam moles within the armed forces, particularly those stationed far from Baghdad. "I think a substantial portion of the military is dissatisfied with him," says a U.S. government expert on Iraq. By creating a crisis, Saddam is able to keep his army on alert and out of politics.

For audiences beyond his borders, the aim is to shatter the Gulf War coalition, weaken resolve at the U.N. and transform the U.S. into the bully. "He may sense that the unity of the sanctions regime is starting to fray," says a State Department official. "The Russians have lots of things at home on their minds, and the Europeans have the Balkans." Saddam wants to ease the constraints imposed on his sovereignty and remove the conflict from the U.N. context: within those corridors, Iraq is putting itself forward as accommodating. "In our culture, once somebody comes to you with military threats, you don't respond. If someone comes to us in a nice way, we respond," Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon insists. Would Saddam? "Yes."

Saddam is particularly interested in exploiting Arab perceptions that the West applies an anti-Muslim double standard. He massages Arab resentment that the same allied forces that retaliate so quickly against Iraq remain indifferent to the Serbian slaughter of Bosnia's Muslims and turn a blind eye to Israel's expulsion of more than 400 Palestinians. Said the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet: "How could the U.S. start this operation against the background of public opinion horrified by events in Bosnia? With 10,000 women raped and people jammed into internment camps in Bosnia, this bombing is inexplicable."

For Iraq's close neighbors, particularly the Kuwaitis, there are more specific worries. Saddam failed to meet a U.N. deadline to remove six police posts that remain on Kuwaiti soil. The diplomatic community is not very hopeful that Bush's air strike will have much influence on the situation. "I don't think it will cause Saddam much pain," noted a Western envoy in Kuwait. "And I doubt it will deter him. He has a long history of miscalculations." Adds a Kuwaiti businessman: "We are behind the U.S. action, but we believe that Saddam will continue to defy the U.N."

From the Western vantage point, the raid was inevitable, as it became the only way to make Saddam abide by U.N. strictures. Saddam's movement of missiles into both the southern and northern no-fly zones late last year was provocation enough. But he virtually invited retaliation when he banned flights by U.N. inspectors and staged cross-border salvage raids into Kuwait last week on four successive days.

The allies responded to none of this with haste. Plans for the raid began months before Christmas. Bush, in phone consultations with British Prime Minister John Major and French President Francois Mitterrand, agreed that the violations of the no-fly zones could not go unanswered. Top military staff at all three defense ministries were instructed to draft a variety of options, ranging from a strike on one no-fly zone to a major assault on Iraq's airfields, missile bases and control-and-command structure. During Bush's New Year's Eve visit to Riyadh, he enlisted the cooperation of King Fahd.

British, French and U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. were instructed to consult their Chinese and Russian colleagues on the Security Council about preparing an ultimatum for Saddam. Bush spoke with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, while Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger contacted his Chinese counterpart. With their acquiescence, the ultimatum was delivered on Jan. 6, and a day later the allies settled on a limited strike. To keep Saddam guessing, they fueled press speculation that the attack might be massive.

Then the game began in earnest, as the mission was called off a first time, when Saddam seemed to remove the missiles, and again last Tuesday because of inclement weather. By Wednesday, the skies had largely cleared, and the allies needed only to wait for darkness. When the mission was complete, the allies had suffered no casualties. Iraq reported that 19 people, including two civilians, were killed and 15 wounded. Saddam threatened, "We will inflict great humiliation on the infidels."

Saddam's game is hardly over. But if he has taken heart from talk of weak resolve on Clinton's part, he will be disappointed. The incoming President is likely to pursue the same course as Bush.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Kuwait City, William Mader/London and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington