Sec. of State Madeleine K. Albright meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal in Riyadh Feb. 2 (AFP)

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 3, 1998; Page A01

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 2—When Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright sat down to banquet today amid the auburn hills and circus-size tents of Crown Prince Abdallah's desert encampment, the biggest question of her Persian Gulf mission was on the table -- whether U.S. warplanes would be allowed to use Saudi air bases to stage airstrikes on Iraq.

More than seven hours later, long past nightfall and long beyond schedule, Albright emerged tense and drawn without an answer, saying only of the U.S. military requests that Abdallah "took them all on board."

"I did lay out some of the military issues to the crown prince," Albright told reporters. "He wanted to consult with other members of his government." Albright added, however, that Riyadh and Washington agree the Baghdad government is to blame for the crisis over U.N. inspections of suspected Iraqi nonconventional weapons sites. "Responsibility . . . falls squarely on the shoulders of Saddam Hussein," she said.

Meanwhile, sources here said that the emir of neighboring Kuwait, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah, gave Albright permission Sunday for U.S. F-117A stealth jets and A-10 ground-attack aircraft to strike at Iraq from Jabir Air Base in southern Kuwait should diplomacy fail to bring Baghdad's full compliance with U.N. disarmament conditions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Bahrain, the next focus of Albright's eight-nation tour, is regarded by the Clinton administration as likely to add its consent for attacks by U.S. B-1 bombers and F-16 and F-15 fighter jets deployed at Bahrain's Sheik Isa Airfield, where they have been stationed since November.

But the Saudi position represents larger stakes than that of any other nation in the region, both diplomatically and operationally. The Clinton administration would like more than a pair of tiny gulf emirates to demonstrate Arab support for an air offensive against Iraq; moreover, the U.S. military urgently needs Saudi airspace and airfields to launch enough missiles and bombing raids to "put at risk the things that matter most" to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- as Gen. Anthony Zinni, chief of the U.S. Central Command, recently described the goal of any air offensive.

To that end, U.S. officials here and in Washington say they hope for at least the same answer to the U.S. requests that Riyadh has given twice before since the Gulf War -- yes to use of refueling, radar-jamming and AWACS battle-management aircraft, no to bombers and missile launchers.

Part of the reason Saudi help is needed is that time would be crucial in the air campaign. Some members of the president's senior foreign policy team have acknowledged that allied and world reaction, especially among Arabs states, will impose practical limits on the duration of any air bombardment. Thus, if time is short, land-based American and British warplanes will have to fly a high number of sorties daily to inflict the substantial damage they say they intend on Iraq's conventional and nonconventional military forces.

Retired general Merrill McPeak, who was Air Force chief of staff during the Gulf War, was quoted after the conflict as saying that warplanes launched from aircraft carriers against an adversary are like drizzle, while their their land-based counterparts deliver blows "like Zeus." The simile is exaggerated perhaps and not much regarded by the Navy, but it contains a grain of truth. Strike aircraft aboard three U.S. carriers and one British carrier in the gulf region -- along with cruise missiles from escorting warships and from B-52 bombers based on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia -- can and would be part of any air campaign. But defense officials say they lack the needed combination of heavy payload and rapid turnaround time that enables one aircraft to fly several missions each day.

That makes Saudi Arabia a crucial partner in any sustained air assault because it hosts nearly one-third of the U.S. aircraft in the region and a controls a large portion of the available airspace and airfields near Iraq.

Albright is leaving military details to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who is scheduled to visit here next week. But officials said she set out to persuade Abdallah -- who has taken on much of the authority of his ailing half-brother, King Fahd, and is less enthusiastic than the monarch about the U.S. alliance -- that his country cannot sit out the fight, if it comes to that.

"The Saudis don't have any sympathy for Saddam Hussein, but they do have to worry about their own public opinion of the suffering of the people of Iraq," a U.S. defense official said. "The question is how many pictures of dead bodies can they stand, because we know Saddam is going to give them those pictures, even if we conduct the perfect air campaign."

Saudi military cooperation could come in a number of forms, some vital and all of them desirable, according to U.S. officials. The first, nearly impossible to operate without, is permission for attacking jets and missiles to fly over Saudi territory. There is simply not enough room in the bottleneck of international airspace formed at Iraq's southeastern border for all the traffic required of a substantial air campaign. In any case, defenseless aircraft such as AWACS and fuel tankers need to hang back over Saudi airspace to avoid the fray.

Another request that U.S. planners consider close to a "go, no go" requirement is for use of Saudi bases by the scores of support aircraft without which most of the strike planes could not do their work. These include the AWACS aircraft that synchronize all the other warplanes; EF-111 radar jammers used to disrupt Iraqi air defenses; KC-135s used to refuel fighters flying long air patrols; and EC-130s used to gather battlefield intelligence. Also in this category but closer to a combat role are the F-15C fighters assigned to protect the other aircraft from Iraqi jets. The majority of all these support aircraft in the region are based in Saudi Arabia. "If we couldn't use Saudi Arabia at all [for support aircraft], I don't know if we could even pull it off," said a military officer who is closely involved in the plans.

Aircraft carriers in theory could take over the support responsibilities, but with scarce deck space and catapult availability the vessels would lose much of their striking power. If carrier-based F-14 fighters had to fly combat air patrol, for example, they would carry missiles used to shoot down other planes instead of bombs.

"If we can't use strike aircraft from Saudi Arabia, we lose about 30 percent of our shooter force," the military officer said. "But if we can still use the [support planes] then we can concentrate our shooters in Kuwait, Bahrain and aboard the carriers."

What makes all these factors more important is that the United States and Britain now field a small fraction of the allied air armada that began the 1991 war. There are "more than 320" aircraft in the region, Navy Capt. Michael Doubleday said in a recent Pentagon briefing. That compares to 1,203 on the day the Gulf War started and those were joined later in the conflict by more than 800 allied warplanes.

In 126,645 sorties over the next 43 days of the Gulf War, Pentagon figures show, those aircraft dropped 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq. They had a significantly larger job to do then, since Iraq was at the peak of its power, but an air campaign now, officials acknowledge, might not exceed 1 percent of the Gulf War's scale of destruction.

The Clinton administration has asked to use Saudi air bases twice since the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein's sent armored forces into a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq in September 1996 and when he expelled all American U.N. weapons inspectors from the country last November. The first time the Saudis agreed, according to one official, "that we can fly anything we want as long as it doesn't shoot or drop bombs."

Two months ago, when Saddam Hussein expelled the Americans and threatened to shoot down a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane, sources here and in Washington said the Saudi government gave highly conditional consent for U.S. warplanes to strike Iraq from Saudi bases. However, this would be allowed only if Iraq took the first offensive step, such as firing missiles or targeting a U-2.

"This time, we're talking about a sustained campaign, something that's going to take three, four days or more, and there is no immediate provocation by Saddam," said one American official with experience in negotiating with the Saudis.

Even so, officials said, Albright and Cohen are asking for full freedom of action for U.S. forces at Saudi bases. Despite the Saudis' temporizing reply today, a senior administration official traveling with Albright said she "is feeling confident that they understand our position and will be on our side if force is used."

Here is a look at military forces that could strike Iraq. The growing momentum for forceful action against Baghdad follows weeks of intransigence by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein toward international weapons inspectors seeking to verify Iraqi compliance with the peace terms that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Under the terms, Iraq is prohibited from producing or stockpiling nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and U.N. inspectors are supposed to have freedom to visit suspected sites.

U.S. AIR FORCE

Turkey: 50 aircaft, 24 of which are combat aircraft, including F-16s, F-15s, AWACS and tanker planes.

Kuwait: 6 F-117s and several A-10s.

Bahrain: Several A-10s and 2 B-1 bombers.

Saudi Arabia: More than 100 aircraft, including F-16s, F-15s, A-10s, AWACS and tankers.

Diego Garcia: 8 B-52 bombers.

U.S. NAVY

Three aircraft carriers:

USS NIMITZ with 70 aircraft and 5 helicopters crew: 5,500

USS GEORGE WASHINGTON with 69 aircraft and 6 helicopters crew: 5,500

USS INDEPENDENCE (en route) accompanied by 3 vessels and one submarine.

Three attack submarines:

USS ANNAPOLIS crew: 133; Tomahawk-capable

USS OLYMPIA crew: 133; Tomahawk-capable

USS L. MENDEL RIVERS crew: 107

One cruiser:

USS NORMANDY crew: 358; carries launchers for Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Four destroyers:

USS INGERSOLL crew: 339

USS JOHN YOUNG crew 339; Tomahawk-capable

USS BARRY crew: 300; Tomahawk-capable

USS CARNEY crew: 300; Tomahawk-capable

Two guided missile frigates:

USS REUBEN JAMES crew: 200

USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS crew:200

One fast combat-support ship:

USS SEATTLE crew: 600

Two mine countermeasures ships:

USS DEXTROUS crew: 81

USS ARDENT crew: 81

"No-fly" zones established as result of 1991 Gulf War:

Patrolling the northern "no-fly" zone are U.S. aircraft stationed in Turkey, including F-15s, F-16s and AWACS.

The southern "no-fly" zone is being patrolled by U.S. planes stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. British and French planes also patrol the two zones.

U.S. ARMY

1,500 combat ground troops in Kuwait.

BRITISH FORCES

The carrier HMS Invincible has been ordered to the gulf from the Mediterranean. British aircraft are also in Saudi Arabia.