Firing Blanks

Saddam Hussein doesn't get to pick his enemies, but if he did, the choice would be easy. Gunning for him on one front is a 25-year-old rookie pilot from California who wants to be known only by his call sign, "Loose." An F-15E Strike Eagle pilot, Loose recently lit his afterburners to escape a salvo of three Iraqi missiles. "I had a big fat grin," Loose says, remembering the day when the missiles came close, but missed, and his commander radioed back that he could retaliate with a pair of 500-lb. bombs. Once again an American pilot trained at a cost of $2.5 million had beaten the $14,000 bounty Saddam offers to any Iraqi who can down a U.S. jet. "People can say this is a low-intensity conflict," Loose said from his hardened bunker at Turkey's Incirlik Air Base. "But I can tell you that having somebody shoot at me definitely makes me feel like I'm at war. And I guarantee that the people I dropped bombs on feel they are at war."

Saddam's other "enemy" lives 2,000 miles away in an 18th century town house on London's fashionable Cavendish Square. It looks more like the corporate digs of a leveraged-buyout firm than the headquarters of a guerrilla movement. Instead of AK-47s and Molotov cocktails, No. 17 Cavendish Square boasts fully equipped offices with ergonomic furniture, fresh-cut flowers and expensive prints hanging on the walls. For a suite on its second floor, the U.S. State Department pays more than $200 a sq. ft. annually, according to documents obtained by TIME--double what most empty modern office space in London costs. Iraqi opposition leaders are supposed to use the lavish accommodations Washington has provided to plot Saddam's overthrow, but most say they stay away. For them, Cavendish Square is an embarrassing example of how the other front in this war with Saddam has become an extravagant charade.

Most Americans can be forgiven if they have forgotten--assuming they ever knew--that the U.S. has been at war with Iraq. A year ago, as the U.N. weapons-inspection program in Iraq collapsed, President Clinton announced that the U.S. would not only "contain" Saddam's threat to the rest of the world but also work to "change" the brutal regime in Baghdad. Clinton also signed the Republican-sponsored Iraq Liberation Act, which allowed him to supply Iraqi opposition groups with as much as $97 million worth of military equipment and training. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appointed veteran foreign-service officer Frank Ricciardone to be her czar for overthrowing the Iraqi dictator, and in January took him along on a Middle East tour to show him off to Arab leaders.

Since then, U.S. warplanes have attacked Iraqi positions in northern Iraq on 89 days--about one of every two days they have flown. Just last week jets bombed missile sites around Mosul for three days. According to documents reviewed by TIME, on some days the Air Force has dropped more than 30 bombs and missiles on as many as half a dozen Iraqi targets. Two months ago, the war ratcheted up when U.S. warplanes attacked an air-defense center south of Mosul and later discovered they had caused "serious destruction" to a 500-man unit hidden there, according to a senior commander. The Administration, senior aides insist, finally has "a serious strategy" for keeping Saddam in his box and eventually ousting him. In his State Department office, Ricciardone has a framed picture of TIME's 1992 cover of Saddam with its red bull's-eye over his face.

Saddam doesn't have to duck for cover just yet. Personally, the bombings endanger him little. And they seem to have had slight effect on his power base, though it is tough to judge popular support for the dictator. One year after Clinton unveiled his plans to overthrow Saddam, Iraqi opposition groups grumble that the program is being staged more for show than out of any conviction that the exiles have a chance of succeeding. House International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman asserts flatly, "The Administration is not very serious...about replacing Saddam's regime."

Dodging the Golden Bb
At Incirlik, an isolated Turkish base 444 miles southeast of Istanbul, the Gulf War has never really ended. Most mornings some two dozen American F-15s and F-16s scream skyward, along with E-3 and RC-135 command planes and KC-135 tankers to keep them safely flying and fueled. An hour later, in a delicately choreographed ballet 400 miles east, the warplanes take their final sips of gas before turning south toward Iraq. Their mission: to show the Iraqi military how impotent Saddam is in protecting Iraqi sovereignty--and them. Maybe this will foment rebellion.

The war out of Incirlik began last Dec. 28 following a four-day U.S. bombing campaign designed to hinder Saddam's efforts to build atomic, biological and chemical weapons. Since then, according to Pentagon reports, American pilots have flown close to 12,000 missions, dropped some 1,200 bombs on nearly 300 targets and destroyed 139 anti-air artillery guns, 28 radars, 13 mobile surface-to-air missile launchers and 22 command sites--all without a single scratch on American property. For the most part, the Iraqis lie low and launch a flurry of flak, hoping to down a warplane and deliver a live pilot to Saddam. "If you're looking at the right place at the right time, you can see the muzzles flash," says Captain Brian Baldwin, an F-15 pilot. "They're looking for the golden BB."