Any American Response to Iraq May Not Be Immediate

WASHINGTON — In dealing with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the options for the U.S. and its allies span the gamut from angry but often ineffective words to bombs raining from the desert skies.

But the supercharged atmospherics of the past week--over Hussein’s barring of U.S. experts from weapons inspection sites--may well belie what’s ahead. Most options would take time--maybe lots of time.

“There’s no set timeline. We’re quite willing to play it along as we go,” a senior Clinton administration official said Monday.

Some options are obvious, especially after seven years of crisis diplomacy with Baghdad. Others reflect imaginative touches. None would be easy.

And short of Iraq throwing the first punch by following through on threats to attack a U.S. U-2 spy plane on loan to U.N. disarmament inspectors, it seems unlikely that the allies will turn to a military solution soon, U.S. officials say.

“Even if we did see a military confrontation at the end of the road, the United States will want to be very careful to lay a good international foundation for it--and that’s not laid down yet,” said Robert Pelletreau, recently retired assistant secretary of State for Near East affairs.

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“Otherwise, there’s going to be a feeling both in the Mideast and Europe that the U.S. had a hair trigger and was jumping the gun,” Pelletreau said.

The major challenge is to devise a course of action where the cost is not higher for the allies--and particularly for the United States--than it is for Baghdad.

“Lurking always in the back of our minds is the price we may have to pay,” said a U.S. official. “Saddam may actually welcome a military strike, for example, as a pretext to throw out all the U.N. inspectors. Then he’d be free to do whatever he wants with his weapons of mass destruction.”

As a rule of thumb, the greater the punishment to Iraq, the higher the price to the United States.

“When you start to look at the options, you see what difficulty we’re in,” said Phebe Marr, Iraq expert at National Defense University. “There aren’t many good ones.”

For the near future, the scene is likely to be dominated by diplomatic to-ing and fro-ing--mostly, but not necessarily exclusively, in the United Nations Security Council.

The Clinton administration began its legwork Monday with the obvious. U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson pushed for a resolution that would include a strong condemnation of Iraq, demand total and immediate compliance with all aspects of U.N. resolutions and impose a travel ban on obstructive Iraqi officials.

More than two weeks ago, before Hussein’s defiant demand that U.S. experts be removed from the U.N. inspection teams, France, Russia, China, Egypt and Kenya abstained rather than vote on a resolution that would have imposed such a travel ban next spring.

The allies do appear more united now, but passage of a new resolution, expected by midweek, is likely to be followed by a “testing time” to see if Hussein will comply, a senior administration official said.

The Russians and French are particularly reluctant to turn to physical force because of past and future financial interests in Iraq that could be jeopardized, U.S. officials say.

Representatives of those two nations are expected to intervene individually to try to persuade Hussein to come around--a process that could eat up more time.

As a purely legal question, if Iraq opts to continue barring U.S. weapons experts from suspected arms sites, the United States could react militarily, U.S. officials say. “We have legal authority to act now,” the senior administration official said. “Technically, we don’t need a formal signal to proceed.”

But too much, too soon could undermine fragile allied unity, only now beginning to emerge after fracturing slowly in recent years. Jan Eliasson, one of three U.N. envoys who just returned to New York from mediating in Baghdad, warned Monday that imminent talk of military action would not go down well with the world body.

A swift U.S. military strike also would almost certainly enrage the Arab world, already angered by more than six years of sanctions that Iraqis say have caused widespread suffering, and antagonize the Iraqi insiders that Washington hopes will someday oust Hussein, experts warn.

If the clash escalates into a military confrontation, the scale of the attack will become an issue within the coalition facing Iraq.

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In the past, allied air and missile attacks have done limited damage, but they have been enough to persuade Hussein to back down. Now, however, there is a growing sense that Hussein is bolder and is intent on testing the coalition’s resolve more seriously.

“We should rule out ‘pinpricks’ because they’ve lost credibility,” Pelletreau said, referring to a term often used to describe the small-scale allied strikes against Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. “Once they were a reminder that force was still out there, but Iraq has proven it needs more than a reminder.”

To send a strong message, the U.S. may have to consider either waiting until Iraq’s violations have driven the fragmented alliance into greater unity or engaging in a longer or bigger military response.