At a Dec. 17 Pentagon news conference, Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shows aerial photos of Iraq's special security brigade headquarters. (Reuters)

By Bradley Graham and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 18, 1998; Page A1

Hitting more than 50 targets during the first night of raids on Iraq, U.S. missiles demolished military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad and destroyed four barracks of the elite troops responsible for protecting President Saddam Hussein and his weapons programs, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Damage at the sites, the officials announced, would undermine Iraq's ability to conceal or expand its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. But the attacks also advanced the parallel, undeclared intent of U.S. planners of the current air campaign to strike at the foundations of Saddam Hussein's power.

As they provided an initial glimpse of the bombing damage and further explanation of the types of targets selected, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that ousting Saddam Hussein was not an objective of the raids. Cohen said the goal of the operation "is not to destabilize the regime."

But the decision to target Saddam Hussein's core forces – his personal guard, intelligence services, internal security structure – shows how the Pentagon is, in some cases, simultaneously going after the Iraqi leader's instruments for developing illicit weapons and the security apparatus that sustains him in power.

At a Pentagon briefing, Shelton displayed before-and-after aerial photographs of the military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Aladhamia section and the Abu Ghraib barracks of the Special Republican Guard. He said the targets, reduced to rubble in photographs taken after the raid, were chosen because of their central role in deceiving and obstructing United Nations weapons inspectors.

But the intelligence service has a far broader function than blocking inspectors from doing their job. It is responsible for maintaining loyalty among the armed forces and manages a large network of informants within Iraq and throughout the Persian Gulf region. The special guard forces serve as Saddam Hussein's palace guard, constituting some of his most elite and trusted units.

As U.S. and British combat aircraft joined in a second night of attacks, Pentagon officials released only scant details about the impact of the bombing, saying concerns about operational security prevented them from being more forthcoming. Shelton and Cohen expressed satisfaction with the results so far, although the Army general noted that some strikes were "not quite as successful" as others. He did not elaborate.

The Pentagon leaders outlined a range of targets they said had been selected because of their involvement in Iraqi efforts to develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or otherwise contribute to the military threat Iraq poses to its neighbors. These included suspected sites for storage and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, headquarters of Iraqi security forces, air defense sites, military airfields and military communications and intelligence facilities.

At the same time, Pentagon officials also drew a clearer picture of what sites they had decided to spare in the interest of minimizing civilian Iraqi casualties. Cohen indicated that "dual-use" facilities – those commercial and industrial plants whose equipment could be diverted to illicit weapons production – had been ruled off limits for this reason. Many of these facilities were among the scores of sites – including pharmaceutical and pesticide plants, breweries and food processing facilities – that U.N. weapons inspectors sought to monitor with visits and camera surveillance.

"We have been careful in our targeting to try to limit it to military types of targets that would minimize the potential for harm to innocent civilians," Cohen said.

Having underestimated Saddam Hussein's ability to stay in power even after the devastation and humiliation of the 1991 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait, U.S. defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity said they were under no illusion about the prospect of this week's air campaign ousting the Iraqi dictator.

"There's no wild hope out there he'll fall," said a high-ranking military officer who has reviewed the strike plan. "There's a hope the attacks may loosen his control, but none of us is expecting it will expel him."

While President Clinton has made Saddam Hussein's removal a more explicit tenet of U.S. policy toward Iraq in the past month, there were no signs that Pentagon officials were preparing to couple the airstrikes with some kind of coup attempt either by internal forces or outside Iraqi opposition groups.

"There's no plan around the corner for an element to rise up and throw Saddam Hussein out of office," the senior officer said. "There's no white knight out there."

Nonetheless, the desire to see Saddam Hussein gone has influenced the planning of those military commanders responsible for drawing up the target list. A senior defense official yesterday, while declining to speak directly to this point, referred to a statement last November by Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander of U.S. forces in the gulf region.

Describing at the time what he considered a credible military operation against Iraq, Zinni said, "I think a serious response puts at risk the things that mean most to Saddam. What means most to him are things like the Special Republican Guards . . . and other Republican Guard units that keep him in power, his own infrastructure and command and control systems and those kind of things."

Shelton, in reiterating the narrower official objectives of the strikes against Saddam Hussein, added yesterday: "Anything else that would weaken his regime would be value added."

Outside analysts have encouraged the administration to concentrate on hitting the supporting structure of Saddam Hussein's power.

"If the attacks are limited to those sites denied access and just inspection by other means, then they will be a fruitless exercise," said Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "We must target Iraqi military installations and leadership sites that would accelerate the process of those opposed to Saddam Hussein.

But few doubt such strikes could topple the Iraqi leader.

"We will have cost him perhaps several billions of dollars worth of military facilities and will have weakened him in some respects, but we will still be trapped in a process of deterrence and containment," said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Iraq with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The current allied air campaign is expected to continue into the weekend, when the world's 1 billion Muslims begin their observance of Ramadan. Although Clinton has indicated a desire to end the bombing before the Muslim holy month begins, Cohen said yesterday the start of Ramadan would not determine when the airstrikes would end.

"Our goal is to complete it as soon as we can without restricting the military operation," Cohen said. "We will take whatever time is necessary to carry out the operation. But we're sensitive to the Ramadan period, and that's all I care to say about it."