By David Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 1991; Page A01

Post time line

President Bush threw cold water on the Soviet peace plan yesterday because he concluded that it would compromise the United Nations resolutions on Iraq, and could allow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to stall the imminent allied ground offensive, administration officials said yesterday.

The officials said that the Soviet proposal had created a sense of apprehension in the highest levels of the administration. They said if Saddam accepts the plan and begins a withdrawal from Kuwait with the understanding of Soviet guarantees later, he would be setting the terms and timing of his retreat. Bush wants him expelled from Kuwait on the coalition's terms and timetable. He also wants Saddam removed from power if at all possible, officials said yesterday.

"We could be in a real box, but we're not there yet," said one senior policy-maker, referring to possible pressure to delay the ground assault.

Although the Soviet proposal called for immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait -- the principal allied demand -- the officials said it also offered Saddam a number of post-war inducements. At least one, preserving Iraq's territorial integrity, has been endorsed by the United States. But many of the other inducements were objectionable to Bush, officials said.

Among them, they said, are Soviet assurances that after the war Saddam and his regime would survive, that sanctions and economic punishment would not be imposed and that the Palestinian and Arab-Israeli disputes would be addressed. The Soviet plan appears to undermine a U.N. resolution holding Iraq responsible for all financial losses stemming from the invasion of Kuwait, one of the dozen resolutions leading up to the conflict.

It was not known how Moscow would implement its assurances to Baghdad. But the plan might make it difficult, if not impossible, to continue U.N. sanctions on Iraq if Saddam remained in power after the war. The Soviet Union, as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, would have veto power over future U.N. actions on Iraq.

Moreover, officials said, just the notion of offering these inducements to Saddam was objectionable to Bush, who has insisted from the outset of the crisis that Saddam not be allowed to save face, and who last week called for Saddam to be overthrown by his own people.

Bush's desire to use the war to wipe out Saddam seems to have intensified with the success of the air war against Iraqi troops. "He would dearly like to do it," said one analyst familiar with the president's thinking. "He's going to put as much pressure as he can on to see if someone else will do it. A war defeating Saddam in Kuwait would create that pressure."

The president has not formally declared toppling Saddam a goal of the war because that would go beyond the aims of the U.N. resolutions and would badly split the allied coalition. At the same time, however, some coalition partners have strongly urged the president to use American military might to create as much pressure as possible on Saddam in hopes of cracking his leadership. Secretary of State James A. Baker III testified to Congress recently that if Saddam is removed from power, the United States and other nations could provide help in post-war reconstruction, but if Saddam remains a wounded tiger in Baghdad, such help would be difficult or impossible.

Michael Mandelbaum, director of East-West Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies here, said "if the United States were disposed to settle this," the Soviet plan "might do the trick." But "we're not," he added, "because we're winning and we also believe that a Middle East with Saddam Hussein will be an endless headache."

In yesterday's Pentagon briefing on the war, Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that if Saddam were able to withdraw from Kuwait with the troops and equipment he still has, "he would still be a very powerful military force" in the region.

Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) said yesterday that U.S. objectives in the gulf have been implicitly expanded to include Saddam's removal. "The impression has been clearly created that Saddam must go," Hamilton said, adding that he believes the United States should not exceed the original objective of liberating Kuwait and restoring its legitimate government.

Moscow's approach has been to show Saddam a way to preserve his power and end the battlefield punishment he is suffering from the air war. Former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze hewed closely to the U.S. approach of no concessions in dealing with Saddam. But since his resignation last December, multiple messages have come from Moscow, some continuing to reassure support for U.S. policy, and others displaying a greater sympathy for Iraq, a longtime Soviet ally and arms client.

The latest burst of Soviet mediation is based on an approach designed in part by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's Middle East envoy, Yevgeny Primakov, an Arabist who has known Saddam for 20 years and met him twice last October and again earlier this month.

Primakov has suggested that Saddam is more likely to pull out of Kuwait if he is shown that his concerns will be addressed after a withdrawal. Last fall, before the war, Primakov said in a lengthy interview with the Soviet weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta that Saddam has a "Masada complex," referring to the Dead Sea fortress where Jewish defenders committed mass suicide to avoid capture by a besieging Roman force in the first century A.D. Primakov suggested then that Iraq should withdraw unconditionally "but this should be followed by certain decisions" to answer Saddam's concerns about his future.

In an interview with ABC's Nightline Monday, Primakov renewed this approach, suggesting that it was important to get Saddam out of Kuwait first, then worry about the other issues later.

"The main thing as I see it now is to insure the withdrawal, the unconditional withdrawal," he said. "And then put an end to the war, of course. And all remaining issues can then be resolved."

But this runs counter to Bush's demand that there be no "linkage" to other Middle East conflicts and no rewards for Saddam's aggression. A senior U.S. official noted the Soviet plan would preserve Saddam's Baath Party regime in Iraq. "They could have had that before Jan. 15," said this official, referring to the U.N. deadline. "Now that they've flouted international law, we don't think that's an appropriate reward. Why should we pay more now than we were willing to pay before?"

"There will be no concessions; we're not going to give," Bush vowed anew yesterday.

Although cool to the Soviet plan, Bush did not reject it outright and deferred to Gorbachev's desire to keep the details secret. Officials said the United States wants to avoid friction with the Soviet Union at this critical juncture, and there is a general recognition that the Soviets are motivated by a desire to position themselves in the Arab world for the post-war period.

The senior U.S. official said when European Community ministers visited Moscow late last week, Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh were "emphatic" that Saddam must leave Kuwait. "The Soviets have been careful to avoid getting off the reservation," he said. "They may be walking into a gray area now, but they are clearly doing their best to keep their coalition flank protected."

"There is a sense they are playing fast and loose -- or at least loose -- but we can't do anything about it now. We are watching, nervously."

Staff writer Tom Kenworthy and researcher Ralph Gaillard Jr. contributed to this report.