Desert Storm Aftermath

By Michael Duffy/Washington

Just six months ago, it was hard to imagine anything much worse than the prospect of Saddam Hussein and his million-man army in control of Kuwait and one-fifth of the world's oil reserves. But an even more frightening specter has since emerged: a wounded and vengeful Saddam with a smaller army whose best punch is an atom bomb.

This latest nightmare turns out to be dangerously close to reality. Last week, after the U.S. threatened to bomb suspected weapons-manufacturing installations, Iraqi officials admitted that they are much closer to joining the nuclear club than was previously known. In a 29-page report to the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq revealed that it had more than 4 lbs. of enriched uranium, developed from three clandestine nuclear programs. The report, a masterpiece of submission and arrogance, made no attempt to justify the illegal program: "Iraq had sound reasons of national security which induced it not to declare certain components of the program."

Though gratified by the sudden openness, Western officials were stunned by the breadth of the Iraqi enrichment effort, and suspected that Saddam's disclosure only hinted at his actual nuclear capability. Indeed, the intelligence failure is almost as frightening as the prospect of Saddam's bomb. After Israeli jets destroyed Iraq's Osirak research reactor in 1981, Baghdad embarked headlong on a secret enrichment program that relied on an old-fashioned method called electromagnetic isotope separation. Used by Manhattan Project scientists in the 1940s, the technology is considered so obsolete that it is discussed openly in scientific literature and can be built from relatively common electrical components. Though time consuming and unreliable, it nonetheless fooled American intelligence officials, who scoured the Iraqi desert with satellites for signs of more modern enrichment plants. Without the help of an Iraqi defector who turned up unannounced at American lines in northern Iraq last March, the U.S. would still be underestimating Saddam's nuclear potential.

The latest evidence has left American and British officials uncertain about the exact size of Iraq's weapons-grade uranium stockpile. In theory, had Saddam's physicists proceeded unimpeded from 1985 to 1995, Iraq might have been able to amass anywhere from 200 lbs. to 1,100 lbs. of bomb-ready fuel, experts say. At present, the amount of fissionable uranium is probably still very small. "I'd be skeptical of claims that he's close to a bomb," said an Administration official. "People who come out with bold statements about how much material he has just don't know what they're talking about."

That still leaves the anti-Saddam alliance in a quandary. Although U.N. Resolution 687 gives inspectors the authority to find and remove from Iraq all chemical, biological and nuclear material and equipment, enforcing the ban is a delicate job. Backed by Britain, Bush has been brandishing his sword largely to spook Saddam into cooperating with the U.N. inspection teams -- a strategy that has yielded only mixed results so far.

Though the last American troops began pulling out of northern Iraq last week, the U.S. still has sufficient numbers of bombers in the region to strike at nuclear facilities. Pentagon officials carefully leaked word last week that they were examining as many as "100 targets" inside Iraq for future air strikes. But that kind of talk only illustrates Bush's problem. The alleged 4 lbs. of enriched uranium occupies a space about the size of a golf ball. The 30 to 38 electromagnetic separators can be shuttled on flatbed trucks, just like the elusive Scud missiles. Intelligence reports last week revealed that Saddam's troops were burying equipment in the sand. Any attack now would only be partially successful at best and, U.S. officials fear, might lead Saddam to retaliate against Israel or the Kurds. As Bush admitted, it's hard to "certify" the locations "when you're burying component parts off in the desert somewhere, in somebody's attic or somebody's basement in downtown Baghdad."

Such obstacles help explain why Bush went out of his way last week to plead with Iraqi military leaders to overthrow their boss. Going well beyond his previous statements, Bush declared, "Our argument is not with the people of Iraq. It's not even with other leaders in Iraq. We'd be perfectly willing to give the military another chance, provided Saddam was out of there." Explained a Bush aide later: "That was very blatant. We don't care if the military takes over. It's Saddam we want."

But the same official admits that the prospects of a coup remain low. According to intelligence reports, Saddam has executed 14 senior military officers in the past four weeks, possibly in response to an attempted coup. For now, though he is defeated militarily and surrounded on nearly all sides by enemies, Saddam is playing a skillful game. "It's quite a brilliant strategy," says Leonard S. Spector, a Carnegie Endowment proliferation expert. Saddam is "stubborn, steadfast, holding as much stuff back as possible and giving us enough to defuse a possible attack." Such deft maneuvering means Bush has a far larger problem on his hands than anyone imagined after Iraq's defeat on Feb. 27. Until the nuclear menace is removed, Bush's yearlong nightmare will not end.

With reporting by William Mader/London and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington