Iraqi Missiles Strike Israel : Others Reported Fired at Saudi Arabia Bases : Gulf war: Reports say that some of the Scuds hitting Israel carried poison gas. But citizens were told to seal their rooms and wear masks

By JACK NELSON

Jan. 18, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

WASHINGTON — Ballistic missiles struck targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia early this morning as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lashed out in retaliation for massive allied bombing attacks against critical military and industrial sites in Iraq and Kuwait.

Israeli officials said eight missiles hit Tel Aviv and other targets after dark, sending citizens fleeing to sealed rooms and donning gas masks. There were early reports that some of the missiles were armed with chemical weapons, but this was later denied.

No information on possible casualties was available, but they appeared to be light.

A spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington said two Scud missiles exploded in Tel Aviv, two in Haifa and three in unpopulated areas. An eighth missile struck an unknown target, the spokesman said.

Informed sources in Washington added that in addition to the attack on Israel, a barrage of six Scud missiles was fired at targets in Saudi Arabia.

President Bush said he was “outraged” at the Iraqi attack. In a statement read by his press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, Bush said the missile launches from Iraqi territory were confirmed by the Pentagon. The United States “condemns this further aggression by Iraq,” the President said.

Details were sketchy, but Bush Administration officials were expected to implore Israel not to launch a massive counterstrike that might bring Arab nations to Hussein’s aid and drive a wedge into the U.S.-led international coalition arrayed against Iraq in the Persian Gulf.

High-level Israeli officials have said they would have no choice but to strike back anyway.

The missile attacks on Israel came after relentless U.S., British, Saudi and Kuwaiti bombing raids against scores of strategic targets in Iraq and Kuwait, including carpet bombing by B-52s of troops and tanks entrenched in southern Kuwait.

U.S. military officials said that allied forces had carried out close to 2,000 air sorties by Thursday night, and President Bush vowed that the attacks “are not going to stop” until Iraq withdraws from occupied Kuwait.

The raids knocked out many of Iraq’s fixed Scud missile sites, officials said, but not the mobile launchers that apparently were used for the retaliatory strikes against Israel. Earlier, the Iraqi ambassador to Belgium had warned that Iraq was prepared to attack Israel and that “the war is just beginning and it’s going to be a very long war.”

The initial wave of more than 1,000 air strikes that began early Thursday Persian Gulf time had been led by U.S. F-15E fighter-bombers. But heavier B-52s with their powerful bombs were brought in later to soften up Iraq’s occupation forces in Kuwait before an eventual land and sea assault on the occupied emirate.

Among the prime targets of the B-52 strikes were Iraq’s elite Republican Guard units positioned in southern Iraq and northern Kuwait. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, but the carpet-bombing could exact a heavy toll on the 150,000-member Guard.

The first-stage aerial attack was successful, U.S. officials said. But they cautioned that it was too soon to declare victory because allied forces still could face a long and tough struggle in their effort to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Bush, somber as he met with his Cabinet, said he was “pleased with the way things have gone so far,” but he, too, tried to dampen expectations of a quick victory.

Declaring that he did not intend to address publicly all the developments in the war, the President told reporters, “I will not be commenting on the ups and downs--and there will be some downs--or the trauma of the moment. There’s a lot of trauma of the moment.”

Speaking to congressional leaders, Bush said, “no one should assume this conflict will be short and easy.”

In Baghdad, a defiant Hussein, showing no inclination to negotiate or capitulate, vowed to defeat his enemies in “the mother of all battles.”

The Iraqi leader, who reportedly spent the first hours of the battle in a bunker, announced that war had begun in a letter to the Iraqi people carried by his government’s news agency. He vowed to defeat the “evil” United States, “treacherous” Saudi Arabia, and “criminal” Israel.

Initial allied losses were extremely light, considering that close to 2,000 aerial missions had been flown through Thursday night. But the allied toll could increase substantially as the military operations expand to include ground and amphibious missions.

The only officially confirmed U.S. casualty was an unidentified Navy pilot whose F/A-18 fighter attack jet was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. A British jet and a Kuwaiti jet also were downed. The two British crewmen were reported missing, and the Kuwaiti pilot reportedly ejected. France said four of its jets were hit by Iraqi fire over Kuwait, but the planes and the pilots all returned.

U.S. officials denied reports by the Iraqi government radio that 55 allied planes had been shot down. In fact, except for heavy anti-aircraft fire in Baghdad, Iraqi resistance was reported to have been relatively light.

There were no official U.S. reports of Iraqi casualties. Baghdad Radio reported that the first wave of the bombing left 23 Iraqis dead and 66 wounded.

Pentagon officials said scores of critical strategic targets had been damaged or destroyed, from chemical weapons plants to nuclear weapons laboratories. Iraq’s air defense network was virtually destroyed, and a number of important command centers leveled, officials said.

In Baghdad, witnesses told reporters that the bombing also destroyed Iraq’s Defense Ministry complex and a telecommunications center on the banks of the Tigris River.

U.S. warplanes also eliminated two ballistic-missile launch sites in western Iraq that military authorities had considered the most likely source of a missile attack on Israel. But an undetermined number of mobile Scud launchers were not hit, officials said.

The massive aerial assault achieved clear control over Kuwaiti and Iraqi airspace, although the extent of damage to Iraqi’s civilian and military command networks remained in question Thursday night, officials said.

“I’m rather pleased that we appear to have achieved tactical surprise,” Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing. “We should not, however, rule out the possibility of Iraqi action either in the air or on the ground, and I can assure you we are on the lookout for it.”

Powell told reporters they “shouldn’t be surprised” to hear reports that allied ground troops were moving closer to the Kuwaiti border, but he said that does “not necessarily mean we’re going to cross the border right away.”

Several military sources said the going could get much rougher for U.S. and allied forces when their ground troops and amphibious forces move in to engage Iraq’s combat-experienced ground troops in Kuwait. Powell, leaving no doubt that ground battles will occur after the Iraqi forces are weakened by the air raids, said military commanders will use “all the tools in the tool box.”

But with 545,000 Iraqi troops, including 150,000 members of the Republican Guard, entrenched in the Kuwait theater of operations, Powell indicated there would be more massive bombings of ground fortifications before the allies invade. The United States has 425,000 ground troops, augmented by about 240,000 allied troops, in Saudi Arabia.

One of the key goals of the initial allied air strike was to knock out Iraq’s Scud missile sites to prevent Hussein from carrying out his threat to drag Israel into the gulf conflict.

“We feel for the solidarity of the coalition that Israel not be brought into this thing,” said Rep. Bill Dickinson (R-Ala.), ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and one of eight key lawmakers briefed Thursday by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Powell.

“We’ve gone after every known Scud to make sure Scuds are not used, and we will visit them regularly,” Dickinson said.

Another member of Congress who attended the briefing said that while the air raids had “inflicted a great deal of damage on their strategic targets,” they had not knocked out Iraq’s feared mobile Scuds.

The legislator, who requested anonymity, said military strategists “have no confidence that they know where they (the mobile missiles) are.”

Reports of the missile attack on Israel prompted immediate protests from members of Congress and American Jewish leaders.

Shaking his head from side to side, Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.), said: “All hell will break loose now.”

“I’m not shocked by the attack,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). “This gives us a dose of reality. The man (Hussein) has no civil limits. It reinforces the need to stop Saddam and eliminate the threat.”

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that as a result of the missile attack, “it will be very difficult for Israel not to be involved” in the gulf war.

“This is not unexpected,” said Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “We fully expected him (Hussein) to carry out his threat.”

McCurdy said he hopes that Israel would retaliate by attacking the mobile Scud missile launchers and refrain from inflicting civilian casualties, the strategy pursued by the U.S.-led forces in the initial air strikes.

Malcolm I. Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the missile strike was particularly regrettable because the West had failed to heed Israel’s warnings about Hussein for the past decade and had supplied him with the technology to develop chemical and biological weapons.

“Perhaps the world will learn a lesson that you cannot co-opt and you cannot coddle ruthless dictators,” Hoenlein said. “The unfortunate thing is that the price of the lesson may be paid with Jewish lives and with the lives of American service people.”

Members of Congress were quick to express support for Operation Desert Storm. The Senate unanimously passed a resolution endorsing “the efforts and leadership of the President as commander in chief” and praising U.S. troops for their “professional excellence, dedicated patriotism and exemplary bravery.”

The House is expected to adopt the same measure today.

Senate Democrats initiated the action partly as a political move designed to offset votes that many of them cast last Saturday against granting the President authority to go to war.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) engaged in a daylong tug-of-war over wording of the measure. Mitchell and a group of liberal Democrats originally proposed to praise only the troops, omitting mention of Bush. Dole countered by demanding that the President be commended both for his “decisive leadership” and his decision to attack Iraq.

One House Republican said he plans to boycott the House vote on the measure. “The Democrats just want to save their backsides because a majority of them failed to support the President last weekend,” said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.).

There was an air of almost giddy euphoria among lawmakers in the wake of the reported success of the first waves of air attacks. Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) said: “Give up, Saddam. Run up the white flag.”

Bush’s tough talk Thursday and comments by the State Department made it clear that Hussein can expect no “pause for peace” in the war despite an appeal at the United Nations by Algeria and Yemen for a cease-fire that would allow Hussein a chance to negotiate.

The U.N. Security Council, in imposing a Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, effectively provided Hussein with a 45-day window in which to withdraw. Asked whether the United States might provide another pause by halting military attacks, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said, “The time for talking is over.”

Algeria and Yemen abandoned their effort for a cease-fire after the major powers opposed the move.

Even U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar echoed the White House position. Asked whether he saw any prospect for peace, Perez de Cuellar said bluntly, “It depends on Iraq--whether Iraq capitulates.”

The only new peace initiative unveiled Thursday was a letter to the U.N. chief from Iran’s president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, offering to mediate a settlement. But Arab and U.S. diplomats dismissed the Iranian proposal. “It’s not serious,” an Arab diplomat said.

The international coalition of 28 nations assembled by Bush to oppose Iraq after its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait has remained solid despite fears on the part of some U.S. officials that once war started some countries might withdraw their support.

In Moscow, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev placed the blame for the war squarely on Hussein and renewed his call for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

Times staff writers Paul Houston, Helene Olen, Alan C. Miller, David G. Savage, Don Shannon and Robin Wright contributed to this story.