US Jets Targeting Iraqi Air Control

Rumsfeld announces change in tactics; Saudis hint they will allow use of bases

WASHINGTON As the United States pressed both diplomatic and military preparations that could lead to an invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that U.S. pilots already had begun attacking air command and communications facilities in Iraq, and not just anti-aircraft weapons and radar.

The switch in tactics could help clear the way for a full-blown attack on the government of President Saddam Hussein, making it harder for Iraq to shoot down U.S. or British planes and to coordinate its responses to an attack.

In another potentially critical move, Saudi Arabia indicated during the weekend that it was likely to permit use of its territory to launch an attack if the UN sanctioned military action.

At the UN, Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that the United States was making progress in its attempts to draft, and lobby for, a new Security Council resolution to ensure a tough UN stand, forcing Iraq to accept weapons inspections and take other steps or face possible military attack.

Rumsfeld said that he had ordered the change in tactics more than a month ago, and the number of sorties against Iraq is up appreciably from a year ago. Whether Iraq is now less capable of defending itself, he said, depended on its ability quickly to rebuild and replace damaged facilities.

The Pentagon has, over the past year, prepositioned heavy equipment in the region and the U.S. Central Command, which overseas American operations in the area, will provisionally move its headquarters from Florida to Qatar later this year.

Powell and some other diplomats, including British officials, said that a UN speech last week by President George W. Bush had generated new support for the tough U.S. approach, and it appeared to have opened the door for a potentially crucial boost from Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, indicated that his country would grant use of its military bases in the event of a UN-supported attack on Iraq. If the United Nations approved of military action, the prince said, "everybody is obliged to follow through" in support. Saudis said that this reflected not a shift from their side because they had always supported recourse to the United Nations in pursuit of Iraqi compliance to UN resolutions that Iraq not develop weapons of mass destruction. Instead, they said, it was in response to a shift by Bush, who said only last week that he would give the United Nations a chance to act.

No immediate neighbor of Iraq had publicly promised to make its military bases or airspace available for attacks to destroy Iraq's reported illicit weapons facilities.

The Saudi stance was embraced by hopeful American officials as a reflection of waning Arab opposition to the principle of a U.S. attack.

Powell returned Monday to New York to press for a strong United Nations resolution demanding Iraqi disarmament. After a series of meetings, Powell said that "I think that the political dynamic" was in favor of the U.S. position and that there was "a great deal of pressure now being placed upon Iraq to come into compliance with the UN mandates of the last 12 years."

The United States wants a new resolution to demand Iraqi compliance with past resolutions requiring it to disarm, permit arms inspectors to verify its disarmament, free prisoners and respect its citizens' human rights.

It further wants the United Nations to authorize the use of force should Saddam fail to comply. Whether these two elements will come in one resolution, as the United States prefers, or in two remains unclear.

Seeking to keep up pressure on Iraq, Bush said Monday that the UN could "tell us whether it's going to serve its purpose and keep the peace or whether it's going to be irrelevant."

A UN decision not to force Iraqi compliance would not be satisfactory to the United States, he said.

Doubts and opposition to a U.S. attack have eased in some quarters since Bush's promise to turn to the United Nations, but they have not vanished.

Turkey, another neighbor of Iraq's, expressed new skepticism Monday about any role in a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel, after a meeting with Powell, expressed concern that any U.S. military action against Iraq could "get out of hand." He said that he still believed there was "room to maneuver" to prevent war.

The Gulf War disrupted Turkey's trade with Iraq, sent 500,000 refugees fleeing to Turkey and, he said, turned northern Iraq into a "no-man's land" in which Kurdish separatist groups, with which Turkey has had continuing troubles, consolidated control.

The U.S. side is expected to keep up pressure later this week when the Turkish minister travels to Washington. He will meet there, for talks on Iraq, with Vice President Dick Cheney, the U.S. national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and possibly Rumsfeld.

Turkish military bases and overflight rights have been essential to the U.S. and British jets that have patrolled the skies of northern and southern Iraq since 1991.

Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud of Lebanon, speaking for Arab foreign ministers who met Saturday met with Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, said, "We want Iraq to implement the Security Council resolutions, which will end the current crisis." And President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt announced a Middle East tour to persuade other leaders to press Iraq to allow weapons inspectors, absent from Iraq since 1998, to return.