Striking Back

By JAMES COLLINS

Bit by bit, U.S. officials pieced together the evidence. Of the 14 men arrested by Kuwait on suspicion of plotting a car-bomb attack last April, two, a nurse named Wali al-Ghazali and a coffee-shop owner named Raad al-Assadi, told FBI agents that their target was definitely George Bush. The agents, who had journeyed to Kuwait to interview the suspects, found that they told the same story down to the smallest, unforeseeable detail. Al-Ghazali even said that if the car explosives failed, he was supposed to don a bomb belt and rush toward the former President during his visit to Kuwait two months ago.

Then there was the bomb -- made with military explosives and built right into the frame of a Toyota Land Cruiser, not just dropped into the trunk. Its internal mechanism bore the signature that the FBI had found in another bomb of undoubted Iraqi provenance. Asked if he was "certain" or just "highly confident" that Bush had been targeted by Saddam Hussein, a senior U.S. intelligence official tersely replied, "We're certain. Al-Ghazali was tasked specifically to kill President Bush."

That was good enough for Bill Clinton. Looking slightly wan, his voice a bit hoarse, a few minutes late and virtually unrehearsed, Clinton addressed the country from the Oval Office on Saturday evening. He described the plot against Bush and the efforts to confirm it. Then he announced that he had sent cruise missiles into Baghdad three hours before. He at one point felt it necessary to give a legalistic nod to the action, and so invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which deals with self-defense. But for his real message he reached back to an older and less subtle principle: "From the first days of our Revolution," he said, "American security has depended on the clarity of this message: Don't tread on us."

The attack ordered by the President consisted of 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a destroyer, the Peterson, in the Red Sea, and a cruiser, the Chancellorsville, sailing in the Persian Gulf. The missiles were fired in the late afternoon Washington time, or about midnight in Baghdad. Carrying 1,000 lbs. of explosives apiece, they reached their target, the sprawling Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters, in about an hour and a half. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell explained that the intelligence agency had undoubtedly conducted the assassination attempt, so it merited the punishment. Further, as Aspin said, the attack was intended to send a message to those who serve closest to Saddam that "following this man is not good for your health."

In assembling the evidence against Iraq, FBI agents traveled back and forth to Kuwait many times. The basic plot was known in detail: "The bomb was to be placed in an area where it could be detonated as President Bush's motorcade was to go by," a top intelligence official said. "The bomb, which weighed 175 lbs., had a fairly large lethal radius. Al-Ghazali was to move within a distance of 300 or 500 feet and detonate the bomb manually, using the radio remote-control device." If that plan failed, al-Ghazali was supposed to move the car to Bush Street in Kuwait City and activate the manual timer, which had a 4 1/2-hour clock.

The FBI often consulted the CIA, which pursued its own leads and, among other things, told the FBI that the names given to the FBI by the suspects belonged to obscure bureaucrats in Iraqi intelligence. Crucial to the FBI's findings was a bomb confiscated in Turkey in 1991 that was similar to the Kuwait bomb and had been in the possession of an Iraqi agent. The FBI and CIA findings were delivered to the White House on Thursday, but Clinton was briefed on their substance Wednesday night. Attorney General Janet Reno and CIA Director R. James Woolsey themselves briefed Clinton on Thursday night in what one official called an "exhaustive and exhausting" session.

Clinton ruled out launching the attack on Friday night, the Muslim Sabbath; striking the Baghdad complex on a Saturday night would theoretically minimize harm to civilians. (Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon said some missiles fell in residential neighborhoods and claimed that "there were numerous civilian casualties.") House Speaker Thomas Foley, in New Orleans, was briefed on Friday afternoon; U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was not informed of the attack until just before it happened. As for Bush himself, Clinton called him in Kennebunkport at 4:40 p.m. Secretary of State Warren Christopher then flew to Maine to brief him personally.

Clinton's short speech got off to a rocky start; he discovered that the TelePrompTer had not arrived and so began late. Nonetheless, the talk was one of his finest moments; he struck the right tone, reasoned but forceful. Accused of zigzagging during the past four months, he acted with determination. At the same time, his response was proportionate; he did not succumb to the temptation of a young President to overreach in an effort to prove himself.

A senior Administration official insisted that Saddam's recent maneuvers on his country's border with Iran, and his refusal to obey a U.N. request to install electronic monitors at nuclear installations, did not play a part in the timing or the scope of the attack. "To try to figure out what is in Saddam Hussein's mind is a path to madness," said the official. "At the same time, the President hopes that one consequence of this action is that it will convince Saddam Hussein all the more of our seriousness that he abide by the terms of the U.N. resolutions."

The surgical strike on the Iraqi intelligence facility, if it proves to be as precise as planned, may indeed send a signal to Saddam's intelligence officers that their continued good health depends on future restraint. But while it may indirectly (and temporarily) moderate his behavior, it won't change Saddam's attitude. As Administration policymakers have observed, the Iraqi dictator is incapable of responding in a militarily threatening manner to the U.S. strike. But he has proven capable of absorbing such blows in the past -- including last January's attack against a suspected nuclear-components facility in the dying days of the Bush Administration. As long as he is in power, Saddam will be probing for vulnerabilities in the U.S.'s armor and exploiting them whenever opportunities arise.

With reporting by Michael Duffy and Elaine Shannon/Washington and Dean Fischer/Cairo