FACING DOWN A DESPOT

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Though caught off guard by the crisis, Clinton has been resolute in dealing with it. He kept his public comments pointed but brief while lining up unanimous support for the Security Council resolution condemning Iraq, then turned to the harder task of enlisting allied support for military action. The President has never been one to rush into major military engagements. He prefers to wait until opportunities present themselves. In Bosnia he agonized and delayed for years until the warring sides were exhausted, then bombed the Serbs to the peace table. But he knows there's no time for that now. As he draws nearer to the brink, the President will have to do a better job of making his case to the American people and the world community. His strongest words last week came when he said he wanted to "wipe the prospect of chemical warfare off the face of the earth...I don't want a bunch of terrorists with laboratories in their briefcases going from airport to airport wreaking havoc in the world." That was the kind of rhetoric Americans will need to hear more of if Clinton is to muster opinion in favor of a sustained conflict. But Clinton wasn't addressing the American people when he said it. He was talking to big donors at a Democratic National Committee fund raiser.

Late on Saturday in the Persian Gulf, the U.S.S. Nimitz had received no attack order from the Pentagon, but everything was pointing to a confrontation. In contrast to last month, when intelligence information took days to reach the aircraft carrier, the CIA was rushing satellite-reconnaissance photos to the Nimitz's dimly lit combat center in just minutes. Out on the flight deck, pilots in F-14s and F-18s who were executing as many as six sorties a day over southern Iraq reported that Saddam was preparing for an American attack by dispersing his surface-to-air missile batteries and bunkering his jets. TIME has learned that fighters from the Nimitz planned to accompany the first U-2 reconnaissance flight on Sunday or Monday, flying at a much lower altitude than the spy plane, which cruises at 90,000 ft. An Iraqi missile attack on the U-2 or its fighter escorts could dissolve Russian, French and Chinese opposition to the use of force--and give America a reason to pull the trigger. To deliver that punch, a formidable armada was assembling: the carriers Nimitz and George Washington (which began steaming in from the Mediterranean last Friday), backed by more than a dozen cruisers, destroyers, guided-missile frigates and attack subs capable of delivering 100 strike planes and 600 cruise and air-to-air missiles. "This sends an unambiguous message that the power is here should the U.N. want to use it," says the commanding officer of the Nimitz, Captain Isaac Richardson. Clinton and his commanders have learned that Saddam isn't bothered by the kind of "pinprick" strikes the U.S. lobbed at Iraq in 1993 and 1996. This time, the idea is "to take a page out of Colin Powell's book and make sure that we really do have the capability to do a decisive job," says Robert Pelletreau, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during Clinton's first term.