Into Rough Water

By WALTER ISAACSON

For 40 years, American warships have been plying the Persian Gulf, symbolizing and substantiating the nation's role as a global power. Never before, however, have those vital waters seemed so treacherous. By blustering into an open- ended commitment to provide convoy protection to eleven reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers, the U.S. now finds itself embroiled as a halfhearted belligerent in a seven-year-old struggle between Iran and Iraq and once more rattling sabers with Tehran's fanatic mullahs.

Worse yet, the U.S. military again looks like a gawky Goliath, beset by poor planning, faulty conception and just plain bad luck. Last week the Bridgeton, a Kuwaiti tanker now flying the Stars and Stripes, prepared to limp out of the Persian Gulf with a 30-ft. by 10-ft. hole in its hull caused by a mine that caught its American protectors unprepared. Jumbo military transports belatedly began ferrying minesweeping helicopters from Norfolk, Va. A Navy helicopter trying to land on the command ship of the task force crashed, with four Americans presumed dead. And the whole region was on edge in the wake of a protest by Iranian pilgrims that turned into a bloodbath in the Saudi Arabian holy city of Mecca. The week's events reminded a twitchy U.S. of the very real risks that come with flying the flag in far-flung corners of the world.

As the Bridgeton took on oil at week's end and another reflagged tanker, the Gas Prince, began its return trip with a full load, it was all too clear that the gulf is no place for ill-conceived operations. Had the mine been struck by a U.S. warship instead of the Bridgeton, the result might well have been yet another tragedy, with no easy way to retaliate. Indeed, from its inception, the whole reflagging operation has seemed drawn from Alice's curiouser and curiouser looking-glass world:

-- Iraq has been responsible for most of the attacks on Persian Gulf shipping, and it was misguided Iraqi missiles that blindsided the U.S.S. Stark in May. But in response, the Reagan Administration lashed out at Iran and pushed its plan to put American flags on tankers belonging to Iraq's ally Kuwait.

-- The U.S. appeared to tilt the balance of the war toward Iran with its arms- for-hostages deals. But as the congressional hearings into that fiasco climaxed, the Administration decided to airlift reporters to the region to highlight its efforts to stand firm against Iran.

-- Naval officers in the gulf had predicted that one of the biggest threats to their ships would come from mines. But no minesweeping ships or helicopters were included in the operation. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger conceded that the Pentagon was not prepared for the possibility that the sea-lane skirting the Iranian coast might be mined. "We did not look for mines in that area," he said, "because there have never been any."

-- After the Bridgeton was hit, the Navy put the 401,000-ton supertanker out front to protect the three U.S. warships that were supposed to be protecting it. The American vessels, bristling with the latest gear to defend against planes, ships and submarines, could not cope with the World War II-vintage mines. "Who is escorting whom?" asked Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd last week. "This patently absurd and ridiculous result of the first escort mission is embarrassing to the nation."

-- As the convoy proceeded, American sailors stood on deck with rifles to shoot any mines that appeared. But minesweepers normally must first cut the tethers that keep them submerged. Despite Reagan's $1.8 trillion military buildup, including $592 billion for the Navy, the U.S. has only three active oceangoing minesweepers, all built during the Korean War.

-- The prime beneficiaries of the American operation are Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Yet when the U.S. finally decided to dispatch minesweeping helicopters to the region last week, it was unable to negotiate the right to use bases in those two countries. The choppers had to be transported to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, 3,000 miles from Kuwait. It will take a ship a week to carry them from there to the Persian Gulf.

-- America's stated goal is to protect oil shipments. But oil experts say the gulf war has stopped only 1% of tanker traffic. What's more, a halt in tanker traffic would damage Iran the most. Thus America's bold action is directly defending Iran's highest strategic interests.

If the commitment were not so serious and the risk to valiant sailors not so great, the whole operation might seem ludicrous. "Never in my twelve years in the Senate have I seen anything as inane, nonsensical and irresponsible," declared Arkansas Democrat Dale Bumpers. "This policy doesn't have one single redeeming value."

In fact, it does. If the U.S. shrank from its commitment to protect free shipping in the gulf, it might as well discard any pretense of being a superpower. Nor could the U.S. afford to stand by idly after the Soviets earlier this year eagerly accepted Kuwait's invitation to help protect its oil shipments.

As in other cases, the Administration's problem was not so much a lack of sensible goals as the way it arrived at its policy and then proceeded to execute it. The original Kuwaiti request, which came late last year, was considered and endorsed by the State Department and the Pentagon. Following a National Security Planning Group meeting in early March, President Reagan approved the plan. But many involved say that top officials were too distracted by the Iran-contra controversy to examine its implications fully. Ironically, the scandal provided an impetus to the reflagging proposal. Moderate Arab states reacted angrily last fall to news that the U.S. had secretly dealt with Iran. Kuwait then requested Soviet protection for its tankers. Administration officials concede that granting assistance to Kuwait was a way to make up for the U.S.'s loss of credibility and to counter the Soviet move.

Until the attack on the Stark, former Chief of Staff Don Regan, his successor Howard Baker and other top White House aides never focused on the - political or military risks involved. Nor did the Congressmen who were informed seem interested in a full briefing. With the uproar over the Stark and the subsequent flurry of publicity about the reflagging plan, Baker and his men realized that the risks had not been adequately weighed. But by then it was impossible to back off, especially in the face of Iran's public crowing about the U.S.'s helplessness.

To make matters worse, the execution was inexplicably sloppy. "I was astonished to find out that they sailed the first convoy without any minesweeping capability at all," said retired Rear Admiral Robert Hanks, who once headed U.S. naval forces in the gulf. "After all, between the middle of May and the middle of June, there were four tankers mined in the upper reaches of the gulf." The Soviet Union, which has 125 oceangoing minesweepers, compared with America's three, routinely uses them to escort its merchant ships in the gulf.

In its effort to build a 600-ship fleet, the Navy has given top priority to costly aircraft-carrier task forces, emphasizing the controversial mission of projecting force against the Soviet land mass during an all-out war. The Reagan Administration, realizing that the Navy's minesweeping capability had been neglected, in 1981 pushed forward a $1.4 billion program to build 14 new Avenger-class oceangoing minesweepers. Five should have been delivered by now, but the program is two years behind schedule. Designed by Navy shipwrights and built by two Wisconsin yards, the vessels had to be lengthened after construction had begun because they lacked proper buoyancy. At another point, work was halted because the contractor had installed the ship's reduction gears backward. The first Avenger is expected to be finished later this year. Under NATO doctrine, the U.S. relies on its West European allies to take primary responsibility for minesweeping operations in the North Atlantic. The British have 42 minesweeping vessels, the Dutch 13 and West Germany 25. But no nation stepped forward to help with the U.S. convoy last week, despite informal entreaties from Washington.

Even more troubling was the reluctance of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia to make their bases available for American minesweeping helicopters. The State Department secured quiet cooperation from these two nations for fuel and logistical support, but could not win basing rights. Both nations are in a tricky position and, says a Western diplomat, "don't want to do anything to provoke Iran."

Saudi Arabia's vulnerability to internal pressure from its large pro-Iran Shi'ite Muslim population and to external violence from its volatile neighbor was tragically demonstrated last week. Iranians making the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca staged political demonstrations against three of Tehran's favorite whipping boys, the U.S., the Soviet Union and Israel. The protests grew unruly, police moved in and, the Saudis announced late last week, 402 people were killed. At least 275 of the dead were Iranians. In Tehran their countrymen responded by attacking the French, Saudi and Kuwaiti embassies.

The gulf fiasco is only the latest ill-fated attempt by the Reagan Administration to assert U.S. interests by deploying troops on largely symbolic missions. The crew of the Stark was on a poorly defined mission when it was struck by wayward Iraqi Exocet missiles last May. In 1983 Marines deployed in Beirut turned out to be sitting ducks in an ill-protected barracks; 241 Americans were killed by a truck bomb. Despite the valor of those who fought in Grenada in 1983, the mission was beset by examples of military ineptitude and interservice rivalries. In Libya three years later, after Navy carriers could not provide enough bombers, Air Force F-111s had to fly all the way from their bases in Britain, and two pilots were lost; their laser-guided bombs were not capable of conducting the intended "surgical strike," and the French embassy was hit.

Congress, like most of America's allies, tends to be markedly queasy whenever it comes to supporting military operations. That attitude is reinforced by missions that are not clearly articulated and by operations that are poorly executed. "We see Pentagon requests for the most complicated of systems," says New York Congressman Charles Schumer, a member of the Budget Committee. "Yet so often when our military has to function in the real world, they're unable to get the job done." The Kuwaiti reflagging is particularly worrisome to many Congressmen because the Administration seems to have stumbled into an open-ended commitment. Senator Bumpers is part of a bipartisan group that has introduced legislation requiring that the reflagging be ended within six months.

The problem, which particularly plagues a democracy, is that sometimes a nation has to make reliable, long-lasting commitments or forfeit its credibility. Nor can such a projection of force be totally risk-free. The decision to escort Kuwaiti tankers violated the maxim that helped shape America's successful foreign policy in the early years after World War II: the need to balance commitments and resources. But in this case the commitment has been made, and the damage that a humiliating retreat would inflict on America's reputation would be almost as great as that from the Iranian arms- for-hostages deals. "If the U.S. backs out of this one," says a Western diplomat in the Persian Gulf, "it won't have enough credibility to float a teacup."

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington and David S. Jackson/Abu Dhabi