Here, finally, was a Saddam surprise, an Iraqi action that U.S. contingency planners had minimized before the war began. When Iraqi troops began pumping oil into the Persian Gulf from Sea Island, an offshore loading facility near Al-Ahmadi last week, Baghdad's motives were instantly clear to Saudi Arabia and to the Kuwaiti government-in-exile. In Taif, Saudi Arabia, where the Kuwaiti administration has settled for the time being, experts plotted the prevailing currents in the gulf and concluded that in only a few days the giant spill could reach Jubail, Saudi Arabia. That is where a mammoth desalinization plant provides much of...
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