Iraq A Deadly Game of Chicken

A parking lot in Baghdad filled with Iraqi soldiers blocking the exits hardly seemed the place for a "delightful unplanned camping trip." David Kay, head of a multinational team of 44 United Nations inspectors, had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he used those words. But it is true that the Iraqis did not attempt to molest Kay's team. The inspectors lounged in relative comfort aboard their air-conditioned bus, played touch football and stayed in communication with the outside world through a suitcase ground station that Kay had rigged up to bounce signals off satellites.

On Saturday, after four days of this not-quite-ordeal, Kay's team was able to leave, taking with it documents relating to Iraq's nuclear bomb program that it had found in a building adjoining the parking lot. Saddam Hussein's government had at first insisted that the documents be handed back. But it later amended that to require only that they be cataloged and registered, and the U.N. Security Council agreed.

Haggling continued over the rights of other U.N. inspectors charged under the terms of the gulf-war cease-fire with ferreting out and destroying what remains of Saddam's so-called NBC (for nuclear, biological and chemical) warfare capabilities. If a helicopter observation flight were actually impeded, the U.S., Britain and France could send helicopter gunships to escort the U.N. helicopters, and would perhaps put armed soldiers aboard the U.N. choppers as well. Last week the U.S. went so far as to move additional warplanes into strike positions in Turkey and to send Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia. But for the moment, the parking-lot incident in the endless game of chicken that Saddam has been playing with U.N. inspectors had come to an end.

Whatever the pretext for confrontation, the game is likely to continue. By now, it has settled into a familiar pattern: Saddam keeps probing to see how far he can go in dragging his feet on complying with, or actually defying, the cease-fire terms. He provokes George Bush and allies into threatening new military action. Saddam then backs down -- until the next time.

Though the game occasionally has farcical aspects, it is being played in deadly earnest on both sides. Saddam, after his defeat in the gulf war, is thought to have concluded that only nuclear weapons would enable him to take on the West in another round. Though U.N. inspections have disclosed that his bomb-building programs were far more extensive than anyone had suspected, the monitoring also established that allied bombing had pretty well demolished them. Less is known about chemical- and biological-warfare capabilities, but they too are thought to have been hard hit.

Nonetheless, Iraq does seem to retain some ability to restart all three programs. Thus Saddam's immediate goal is to preserve as much of that expertise as possible by hiding it from U.N. eyes. Politically, his aim is to demonstrate, by repeatedly tweaking the U.S., that he not only has survived but also remains a force to be reckoned with. Ultimately, he hopes, the world will weary of endless inconclusive showdowns and shift its attention elsewhere; he will be left in peace to rebuild his military machine until he attains the regional dominance that he was attempting to achieve when the gulf war began.