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Washington was increasingly confident that it could contain any military thrust from Iraq. As Operation Desert Shield, which features the largest airlift in history, continued, the day when the U.S. and allied forces would have sufficient strength to conduct offensive operations against Iraq was rapidly approaching, especially since Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has persuaded other gulf countries like Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to provide logistical facilities. In less than two weeks, the U.S. has sent nearly 100,000 troops and a billion pounds of supplies, the equivalent, Pentagon officials boasted, of moving a community the size of Jefferson City, Mo. Despite all this, it could still be several weeks before the planned buildup of heavy armored units is completed, giving the U.S. the capability of waging a ground war against numerically superior Iraqi forces.
Even then the U.S. might not have enough military muscle on hand to liberate Kuwait by force. Said former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director James Schlesinger: "The President may have gotten himself to a point where he can neither back up nor go forward because he lacks the military capacity to expel the Iraqis." The Pentagon conceded it could have a serious fight on its hands. The million-man Iraqi army is battle-experienced (although its morale is in doubt after the eight-year war with Iran and Saddam's frequent purges of the officer corps). Moreover, Iraq's forward air defense and Soviet-built T-72 tanks would be highly effective against a U.S. ground and air assault. In this situation, officials indicated, the U.S. might choose to sweep around Kuwait, directly into Iraq, with ground forces receiving support from both the Air Force and the Navy in the gulf and a coordinated Marine amphibious assault. Before any such thrust, U.S. aircraft would sever Iraq's long and crucial supply lines from Baghdad to Kuwait and vicinity. U.S. aircraft would also try to take out Iraq's nuclear- and chemical-warfare facilities before allied troops had to don their gas masks and protective clothing.
Still, the Administration would prefer to continue the buildup in Saudi Arabia, pursue the economic blockade of Iraq, and try to keep up the international pressure until Saddam folds. That scenario has the ring of wishful thinking. Economic sanctions are rarely decisive; in Cuba and Vietnam they only stiffened the resolve of those at whom they were aimed.
Nor would the hardship of a prolonged confrontation be confined to Iraq. Although Bush, much like Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam, has sought to downplay the domestic costs of Desert Shield, he will not be able to do so for long. The fear of war alone was enough to push financial markets in the U.S., Europe and Japan into a deep slide, a mere foretaste of the worldwide economic disaster that would occur if an all-out war erupted, involving not just the U.S. and Iraq but Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries -- perhaps including Israel -- as well. The call-up of U.S. reserves will remove 40,000 men and women from their families and jobs.