First published: NYTimes February 21, 1998 Washington sez: "The mushroom will grow again if allowed to flower" Don't mushrooms spread underground ? U.S. Outlines: Its Intended Targets in Iraq WASHINGTON -- As Saddam Hussein defied U.N. inspectors late last month, President Clinton's top foreign policy advisers huddled in the basement White House Situation Room to wrestle with their military options. The aides had already shelved a top-secret plan to carry out a prolonged series of moderate air strikes. Officials feared this would not force Saddam to allow unrestricted weapon inspections. Instead, at the Jan. 24 meeting, the president and his advisers approved an intense, four-day, round-the-clock bombardment aimed at undermining the Iraqi military apparatus that supports Saddam and diminishing Iraq's ability to use and produce biological and chemical weapons. As Defense Secretary William Cohen recalled in an interview Friday, the president turned to his top aides and asked, "Are we all agreed?" After the aides voiced their approval, Clinton said, "Let's do it." Desert Thunder, as Pentagon planners have named the military campaign, was born. The administration planners acknowledge that after such a bombing campaign the West's ability to monitor Iraq's chemical and biological programs will be sharply reduced. Bombing is expected to destroy U.N. cameras now in place at various key sites in Iraq, and American officials are assuming that U.N. inspectors will never be allowed to resume their work. Critics, however, say the plan will kill many Iraqis without getting to the root of the problem: Saddam's hold on power and his hidden cache of chemical and biological weapons. Senior administration and military officers have disclosed these details of their planning: -- While Clinton and others have spoken of Iraq's threat to its neighbors, administration specialists believe that Saddam's conventional military is so weakened by the 1991 Persian Gulf war that it does not pose an imminent threat to other countries. -- The administration is relying on strikes against production facilities, conventional forces and Saddam's power structure because it cannot pinpoint Iraq's Scud missiles and stores of chemical and biological weapons. -- The Pentagon is taking steps to limit civilian casualties, like avoiding bombing chemical sites that could unleash a deadly plume. But it has warned Congress that more than 1,500 Iraqis could die in air raids. -- Government experts say it is unlikely that Iraq will launch a chemical or biological counterattack. Such a move, they say, would buttress American claims that an attack was necessary and risk a devastating American assault with conventional arms. The raids would be only a fraction of those carried out during the 43-day gulf war in 1991. But military experts expect they will include 300 combat flights a day and hundreds of cruise missiles. The bombing salvos would pound Iraq's air defenses, fighter planes, command posts, missile factories, Republican Guard compounds, intelligence headquarters and sites that can produce chemicals. Even senior American officials concede that the bombing is a poor substitute for an effective system of U.N. oversight. But they insist it is the best alternative if Saddam will not cooperate. "There is no question that military action is less effective than getting the inspections going again," said one senior Pentagon aide. The air campaign that Clinton approved on Jan. 24 had its origins in November, when Iraq balked at allowing U.N. weapons inspections and threatened to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane. The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which directs American forces in the Persian Gulf, began compiling a war plan under the direction of Gen. Anthony Zinni. Diplomacy defused that crisis. But the planning went on, and the military drew up at least half a dozen options to respond to Iraqi provocations. U.S. Narrows Its Military Options "We were working through a variety -- from a sustained campaign, to a short intense one, to a 'shoot, stop, look' approach," said a senior American officer involved in the planning. By last month, Saddam was again blocking weapons inspectors at eight large sites. In Washington, Clinton's top foreign policy advisers, known as the principals' committee, met daily to develop diplomatic and military options. But Clinton's top aides did not like the military planners' concept of a long campaign with bombing pauses. They feared that it would not force Saddam to open all the suspected sites, but would allow him to declare a propaganda victory. Another worry was that an international outcry would make it hard for the United States to complete a long bombing campaign. So they turned to the shorter, more intense campaign. "The idea was, 'Let's hit him really hard,"' said a senior military officer involved in the planning. Top aides to Clinton understood from the beginning that the faced a conundrum with Iraq, no matter which plan they adopted. The Iraqi military's most dangerous weapons -- the presumed stocks of chemical and biological weapons are extremely difficult to locate. The easiest targets to strike are largely old aircraft and missiles or potential production sites already monitored by cameras installed by the United Nations. There were serious questions about whether a military strike was worthwhile. Was it better to rely on economic sanctions and U.N. inspectors, even ones whose movements were limited? Or was it better to resort to military action even thought that may bring what remained of the inspections to an end. One military officer who has reviewed the attack plans said they call for about 300 sea-based Tomahawk and 100 air-launched cruise missiles, carried on B-52 bombers, which would be fired in a round-the-clock campaign lasting about four days. Air Force F-117s "stealth fighters," B-1 bombers and F-16s would also strike military targets. Navy carrier-based F-14s and F/A-18s would play a more important role than in the Persian Gulf war. The aircraft are now equipped with laser-guided bombs. Justifying the targeting strategy, Zinni has said the intent "is to deny him the capability to continue to threaten his neighbors and his own people and to threaten the world with his capability. So I think we are trying to take away his tools or his ability to continue the way he has." Saddam "doesn't much care if you strike a unit, a surface-to-air missile site, a division," Zinni explained in November. "What means most to him are things like the special Republican Guards, his own special Republican Guard and other Republican Guard units that keep him in power, his own infrastructure and command and control systems and those kind of things." Among those tools are factories that could make biological and chemical weapons, conventional bombs, cluster bombs, fuel-air explosives, rocket propellants and electronic guidance systems. The most important of these factories are in Baghdad, Fao, Yusifiyah, Iskandariyah and Qaqaa, according to U.S. government officials. The United States can hit many of the so-called "dual-use" installations that can make ingredients for chemical and poison gas. But they are already subject to U.N. monitoring. As long as the United States does not attack, the monitoring will go on. American air power can also strike the eight presidential sites, which Saddam has put off limits to U.N. inspectors. But American officials say it is unlikely that biological and chemical stocks are housed there. The sites are believed to include records to which the United Nations would like to gain access to reconstruct the history of the Iraqi program. Bombing those sites would only destroy those records. Then there are delivery systems, such as aircraft and missile factories. Iraq is also allowed to manufacture missiles with a range of up to 150 kilometers. That program is being monitored by the United Nations, but the factory could make longer-range missiles if the monitoring was halted. Administration officials also suggest that they may be able attack chemical and biological sites that have eluded detection by the United Nations. But as experts picked targets based on information from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, senior administration officials made a crucial decision to exclude sites that carried even a moderate risk of civilian casualties. Some suspected chemical and biological sites were scratched over fears of unleashing a toxic plume over Baghdad. "We have gone to great lengths to ensure that in any targets that were selected, that we do not intentionally release any kind of chem/bio," Gen. Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."We have done some studies, some analysis of 'what ifs' in the event that in spite of the fact that he claims he doesn't have any, we were to strike a target where he was hiding, storing, to see what the result of that would be done and to see what could be done after that to minimize the casualties." The military has warned Congress there will be Iraqi casualties. Shelton told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at a private briefing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 11 that an air campaign could kill or injure 1,200 to 1,500 Iraqi civilians and troops. But Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat with close ties to the military, said in an interview that the casualty estimate he has received in classified military briefings was much higher than 1,500. Murtha would not disclose the higher figure. While the Clinton administration has described the Iraqi military as a menace to the region, it is a shadow of the military that stormed into Kuwait in 1990. Iraq has about 300 fighter planes, including Soviet-made MiGs-25 and Su-25 bombers. American intelligence says that only 60 percent of those planes are ready to fly at a given time and that Iraqi pilots do relatively little training. Nor is there any indication that the Iraqis have trained their Air Force to deliver biological and chemical weapons. "You would think that squadrons would practice tossing bombs at targets or practice dispersing chemicals at high altitude so that it could be carried by wind drifts toward towns," said an administration official familiar with intelligence reports. "But they do not do that kind of stuff." Artillery and short-range rockets are also potential delivery systems but they have very limited reach. The Scud missiles which rained down on Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Persian Gulf remains one of Iraqi's most worrisome weapons. According to American intelligence, Iraq has a small stockpile of chemical and biological missile warheads and bombs, as well as the Scud missiles to deliver them. These conclusions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are based on calculations of how many weapons Iraq had before the 1991 Persian Gulf war and how many are believed to have been destroyed since them. But as worrisome as the Scuds are, officials say their utility as delivery systems may be limited. The best way to disperse germs or poison gas in a missile attack is in an "air burst" so that the agents cover the widest possible areas. But that requires specially designed fuses. One administration official said it is more likely that the warheads are designed to explode when it hits the ground, reducing its effectiveness. "In a strict logical sense it is a nuisance now," said an administration official said, referring to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "The mushroom will grow again if it allowed to flower." ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. **