TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/100890/1008015.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 9.9 KB | 208 lines

                ╞c                                                            THE GULF, Page 26

The Battle Beckons


With sanctions serving only to increase Saddam's belligerence
and the West struggling to fathom his thinking, war looks more
and more inevitable

By LISA BEYER -- Reported by Dean Fischer/Riyadh, Dan Goodgame/
Washington, and J.F.O.McAllister/New York


    Saddam Hussein really may be his own worst enemy. Here was
his opportunity to tell his side of the story to the U.S., a
chance to stir up dissent or at least raise a few doubts among
the American people as they faced the dark uncertainty of war.
And he blew it.

    The Iraqi President's videotaped message to America last
week was absurdly long -- 75 minutes of a staid Saddam at his
desk, potted plant to his left -- and the rambling script
brimmed with illogic, non sequiturs and esoteric references to
history. In the land of the sound bite, where attention spans
are conditioned by the quick democracy of the remote control,
The Saddam Show was barely worthy of public-access cable, much
less prime-time TV. It was no surprise that the major networks
ran only brief excerpts, while CNN relegated its full airing of
the tape to 1 a.m. Eastern time. "Nobody who understands modern
television," said an American intelligence analyst, "would
deliver such a tape."

    Saddam has aides who know that. His ambassadors in the West
know. His Foreign Minister, who gets around, knows. But as his
bungling of the video op demonstrated, the Iraqi leader -- who
understands little of the outside world, having traveled abroad
only briefly on a couple of occasions -- is taking no counsel.
Says an official at the Pentagon: "He seems to be holed up in
his own ivory tower."

    Meanwhile, down below, the forces aligned against Saddam
are growing increasingly restless. Nowadays the talk is mainly
about when, not if, there will be war. House Armed Services
Committee chairman Les Aspin said last week the Bush
Administration appeared to be "looking more and more favorably
on the war option." Come mid-November, when the allied military
buildup in the gulf will be complete, the Administration will
assess whether the economic sanctions are pushing Iraq toward
capitulation. Judging from Baghdad's behavior last week, the
answer may be no. For the first time, the bellicose state
threatened to launch a first strike against Saudi Arabia and
Israel should the sanctions begin to "strangle" Iraqis.

    His adversaries take Saddam at his word. The Iraqi's
remarks, said U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, are the "first
evidence that in fact he's really beginning to feel the pain"
of the sanctions. As his discomfort grows, said Cheney, Saddam
may "use his military force to try to break the stranglehold."

    A terrorist attack would be one way for him to lash out.
According to U.S. intelligence officials, suspected terrorists
have been seen casing U.S. and Saudi facilities in various
places around the world. Two weeks ago, Riyadh expelled an
undisclosed number of Iraqi, Jordanian and Yemeni diplomats for
allegedly spying on foreign forces and passing the information
on to Baghdad and terrorist groups. To tighten security, the
U.S. military has moved some of its troops from hotels to more
remote quarters. Security around Saudi oil fields and refineries
has also been stepped up.

    But Saddam's belligerence has only driven his foes to
tighten their garrote around Iraq. In its eighth resolution
against Iraq in eight weeks, the U.N. Security Council approved
an air blockade of the maverick state. Though Cuba dissented,
Yemen, once a Saddam sympathizer, voted yea, making the tally 14
to 1. Since Iraq receives little goods by air, the ban has
little practical value, but it does have symbolic merit as
another turn of the screw.

    In a remarkable speech to the U.N., Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze delivered his country's toughest words yet
on the gulf crisis, explicitly endorsing U.N. military action
against Iraq unless it disgorges Kuwait. The address, said a
senior Pentagon official, "could have been written at the White
House." Washington and Moscow are still at odds over the Soviet
position that any military campaign against Iraq should be
U.N.-endorsed and under U.N. command. But Shevardnadze's remarks
suggest that the Soviets might allow unilateral action against
Saddam to pass without protest.

    While Iraq last week boosted the number of its troops
within striking distance of Saudi Arabia by 70,000, to a total
of 430,000, the firepower arrayed against Saddam also mounted.
Foreign forces in Saudi Arabia are so multitudinous that "there
is no more space to park the airplanes and no more bunks to
accommodate the troops," says an amazed Western ambassador in
Riyadh. To crowd Saddam even more, Washington announced it would
move the aircraft carrier Independence into the Persian Gulf,
the first such deployment since 1974. The Navy has long argued
that the narrow and shallow Persian Gulf is too confining for
carriers, but the move will put the Independence's fighter
planes within striking distance of Iraqi targets without the
need for in-flight refueling.

    Last week brought a worrisome sign, however, of a possible
fracture in the alliance. In his U.N. speech, French President
Francois Mitterrand suggested offering Saddam a face-saving way
out, stating that if Iraq were to promise to withdraw,
"everything would be possible," a reference to resolution of
Iraq's gripes against Kuwait. A senior Pentagon official said he
was "astounded" by Mitterrand's remarks, which contradicted
Washington's position that Iraq must leave Kuwait without
preconditions. Later, Paris assured Washington that it was not
straying from the pack. Mitterrand's remarks, said a senior
French official, were merely aimed at "opening a last door [to
Saddam] before the man commits suicide."

    Iran continued to play a double game between Iraq and the
anti-Saddam coalition, although Tehran offered Baghdad less and
less comfort. Late last week millions of Iranians participated
in government-called anti-U.S. demonstrations. In addition,
Tehran said it would continue to sell Iraq small amounts of
food, citing humanitarian exemptions from the U.N. sanctions.
But the Iranians promised they would otherwise abide by the
blockade. That quieted speculation that the Iranians might serve
as a front for Iraqi oil sales and helped bring about the
resumption of diplomatic ties with Britain, which were severed
in early 1989 over the Salman Rushdie affair.

    The Saudis are feeling ever more confident. Although Saudi
officials publicly continue to stress the defensive nature of
the visiting forces, their statements and actions are
increasingly aggressive. Openly feuding with Jordan over King
Hussein's wishy-washiness, the Saudis have cut off oil supplies
to that country, which had been relying on its neighbor for half
its energy needs. For added emphasis, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan,
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., published a scathing open
letter to King Hussein in the New York Times and the Washington
Post, attacking him for sympathizing with Saddam.

    The growing acceptance of the inevitability of war springs
from a consensus that Saddam has made up his mind not to back
down. It is impossible, of course, to predict the behavior of a
man as determined and clever as he is. Because he blithely jails
or executes all adversaries, Western intelligence agencies have
great difficulty getting spies close to him. Still, students of
Saddam's behavior believe that they have a fix on his mind-set.

    According to Dr. Jerrold Post, founder of the CIA's center
for analyzing the psychology of world leaders, Saddam exhibits a
well-documented syndrome known as malignant narcissism. Among
its elements are overarching arrogance and ambition. This crisis
finally puts Saddam where he feels he should be, at the center
of world attention, as befits a great historical figure. He sees
himself going head-to-head with George Bush, leader of the
Western world, a perception Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert
at the Brookings Institution, believes Bush mistakenly
encourages with his occasional ad hominem attacks on the Iraqi
leader. "Saddam is not going to give up," says Dr. Vanik
Volkan, director of the Center for the Study of the Mind and
Human Interaction at the University of Virginia Medical School
in Charlottesville. "The No. 1 thing for him is to maintain his
grand sense of self, which is intertwined with Arab issues at
this point."

    At the same time, Saddam has a history of making
extraordinary reversals, as when he abruptly returned in August
the territory he won during his war with Iran so he could
concentrate his troops in Kuwait. Saddam sees that he still has
time for stubbornness, since an unprovoked attack against him is
not yet imminent. He may soften later on. But some analysts
expect him to stand firm in the belief that he can actually
survive a fight. "We really think this man might take us into
war without realizing what he is up against," notes a senior
Arab official. "He seems to think he's still facing Iran. And no
one who is close to him will tell him how it is."

    That point, some analysts say, argues for delivering a
blunt message to Saddam that he must withdraw or face
obliteration. The Soviets might be the most effective
messengers, using their existing contacts in Baghdad to set the
Iraqi President straight. Of course, if Saddam becomes convinced
he cannot win, he could then retreat with his war machine fully
intact, a scenario that chills his opponents. "But do you know
whom we are counting on to ensure that doesn't happen?" asks the
Arab official. "Saddam Hussein. He has an amazing ability to
shoot himself in the foot." That assessment hardly bodes a
peaceful denouement.