2ND CARRIER HEADED TO PERSIAN GULF.

Byline: Michael E. Ruane Knight-Ridder News Wire

The United States ordered a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf area Thursday, even as it dispatched stealth fighters and B-52 bombers toward what could be a reprise of the 1991 Gulf War air battles around Baghdad.

The Pentagon said it was sending the USS Enterprise, currently in the Adriatic Sea, to support the carrier USS Carl Vinson, which is already in the Persian Gulf.

Thursday's gathering of forces came as Iraq claimed to have fired three more missiles at American jets in the southern no-fly zone and accused Kuwait of committing an ``act of war'' by allowing U.S. jets to be based at its Al-Jabar air base. The Pentagon said it had detected no missile firings.

And it came amid increasingly fractious criticism of the Clinton administration's handling of the situation.

Iraq's recent success in its northern Kurdish regions ``represents a defeat for U.S. policy that, like the demise of the (former allied) coalition, is attributable at least in part to a failure of leadership,'' former Bush administration Secretary of State James A. Baker III told a Senate committee Thursday.

Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp said: ``Saddam Hussein's goals are clear. Bill Clinton must tell us what our goals are and how we can achieve them.''

The administration, meanwhile, sent out slightly less bellicose verbal messages to Iraq.

``I don't want to get in a word war with Saddam Hussein,'' Clinton said in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., where he was campaigning. ``But we're going to do whatever it takes to keep him from threatening his neighbors, threatening our pilots.''

Experts said any U.S. air assault on Iraq was likely to focus on Baghdad - the nation's capital and military nerve center.

``I would assume (targets) are going to be more strategic - political, military headquarters, or any site that we suspect or know might be a nascent weapons of mass destruction area,'' said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, co-author of ``The General's War,'' a study of the Persian Gulf conflict.

``I think we have to hit targets of greater value and that means, in part, hitting targets in Baghdad, and that raises the issue of collateral damage and civilian casualties,'' he said.

The bat-wing F-117s, which can carry two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs, are expected to be the cutting edge of any American attack. They are not expected in the gulf area until this morning.

Eight stealths left Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., on Thursday afternoon. They will be accompanied by 17 KC-135 and KC-10 aerial tankers on a 10,000-mile marathon flight to Kuwait.

The radar-evading fighters were to make a grueling, 17-hour overnight trip - with 15 refuelings - across the United States and the Atlantic Ocean en route to the gulf.

The stealths and the Navy jets will be part of a growing air armada that also could include scores of American fighters, bombers and electronic jamming aircraft already in the area enforcing Operation Southern Watch, the allies' no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

When assembled it will be a formidable force, and, with the F-117s especially, will send a powerful signal to Iraq, observers said.

It says the United States wants ``to have the option to conduct operations throughout Iraq,'' said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Horner, who commanded the American air forces during the Gulf War.

Further, Iraq has ``to know that there's nothing they can do about'' the stealth fighter, Horner said. ``They tried their best in the Gulf War and they never laid a glove on it.''

And the stealth fighters' job - as it was in the start of the Gulf War - likely will be to help blind the once-potent Iraqi air defense system, which the United States almost certainly will have to challenge in any new series of air strikes.

It is a job that may not be easy.

Even though Iraq's highly capable, French-designed ``KARI'' air defense system was ravaged by American air power during the Gulf War, some of it survived and much of it has been revitalized, experts and officials have said.

``I suspect they have probably done rather well'' at rebuilding the system, said Trainor.

``They had a very sophisticated system,'' he said, in a telephone interview from Harvard University, where he directs the Kennedy School of Government's national security program. ``It was largely destroyed, but the concept of the system is still worthwhile.

``I suspect (Saddam) has built it back up, probably not to the state it was in 1990, but has reasonably well restored it, particularly in and around Baghdad.''

Horner, speaking in a telephone interview here, said: ``There's no doubt in my mind that after the Gulf War one of their top priorities was to reinforce their air defenses. They certainly learned a lesson about our use of and reliance on air power.''

Despite the massing of U.S. forces, Defense Secretary William Perry also sounded a moderate note in his comments on the standoff Thursday.

``The U.S. military forces . . . (in the area) do not pose a threat to Iraq or any other country,'' Perry said at the Pentagon. ``They are there to provide security and stability in the region. They are there as deterrent forces.''

Still, he said, ``everybody should understand that the United States will take all necessary and appropriate action to protect our forces and to protect our interests in that area.''

The 35-year-old Enterprise will be accompanied by the guided missile cruiser Gettysburg and the nuclear attack submarine Norfolk - both laden with cruise missiles. The Enterprise also will add 49 fighters and strike aircraft to the 50 already available on the Carl Vinson.

The Pentagon declined to say how long it would take for the carrier to reach the area, but it was expected to take several days.