By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 27, 1998; Page A01

The Clinton administration, which sent dozens of extra bombers and thousands of soldiers and sailors to intimidate Iraq during a showdown in the Persian Gulf in February, has begun withdrawing the additional forces and returning to "pre-crisis" levels of military strength in the region.

The reduction in U.S. military power in the gulf reflected an assessment that the crisis with President Saddam Hussein's government has subsided now that Baghdad has renewed promises to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors, according to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. At the same time, it responded to concern at the Pentagon that long-term deployment around Iraq was stretching military resources and imposing difficult absences from their families on U.S. troops.

At the urging of the Pentagon, President Clinton decided Thursday to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the region by roughly half and cut the number of aircraft carriers on station there from two to one, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said yesterday. Following the orders, the USS Independence moved out of the gulf Sunday, leaving the USS John Stennis and its battle group as the only carrier in the waters off Iraq for the first time since the crisis early this year.

Also coming home, said defense officials, are 36 fighters and their support aircraft, which will fly back to the United States from Bahrain. Another six F-117 stealth warplanes are leaving Kuwait and another six B-52 bombers and nine KC-120 tanker craft will leave the Diego Garcia Air Base in the Indian Ocean, the officials said.

The gulf force will be reduced from its recent peak of 44,000 U.S. military personnel to about 19,000 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel. That is the number permanently stationed on ships, air bases and other facilities around the region.

The standoff eased when the Iraqi government allowed U.N. inspectors to search for documents at high-security "presidential sites" at the end of February. But U.N. officials complain Iraq still has failed to turn over all information about its weapons production efforts and proof that it has destroyed weapons known to have been produced.

In that light, Bacon said yesterday that U.S. forces will leave behind ships that will carry twice as many cruise missiles as they did during the Persian Gulf War. The United States will have "the ability to exert a swift and powerful strike if we have to, and also the ability to increase that cruise missile force very, very rapidly," said Bacon.

Speaking to reporters traveling with him in Chile on Monday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said it would take "just 48 hours" to "handle any situation that might develop in the short run." Saddam Hussein, he added, "should take no comfort in the fact that we are rationalizing our force structure there consistent with the threat analysis. Tensions have eased somewhat."

Word of the reduction in forces seeped out over the long Memorial Day weekend, drawing little attention. This marked a sharp contrast with the fanfare that accompanied the build-up of forces, when administration officials were eager to convince Iraq they meant business.

Top Pentagon officials met with Clinton on Thursday to make the case that the size of the force should be reduced, arguing that the deployment was putting a significant strain on manpower and equipment, defense officials said. In addition, countries in the region such as Bahrain, where additional U.S. military personnel and equipment have been stationed, were pressing Washington to reduce its troop presence, which is a sensitive domestic issue for gulf leaders.

"There were many countries in the region that said, stay as long as you need to, but not longer," said one defense official.

The forces were sent to the region in preparation for a sustained bombing campaign in the event Saddam Hussein continued to deny U.N. inspectors access to the sensitive presidential sites. With the agreement brokered by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, there are no longer plans to carry out such a strike, Pentagon officials said.

For weeks, the State Department and Bill Richardson, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, argued that reducing forces would signal Iraq that the United States was reducing pressure. But at the State Department yesterday, spokesman Jamie Rubin echoed the Pentagon's rationale, saying, "The basic pillars of our policy -- robust forward presence, rapid reinforcement capability, and support and enforcement of the U.N. Security Council mandates -- remain the same."