AIRSTRIKES ON IRAQ GET MIXED RESULTS.

Byline: Philip Shenon The New York Times

After three days of the air assault on Iraq, the Pentagon indicated Friday that U.S. forces had fired some 300 cruise missiles at Iraqi targets but had severely damaged or destroyed only 18 of the 88 sites they hit.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein showed defiance toward the United States in his first televised address since the attacks began, calling his attackers ``the agents of Satan.'' U.S. military planes rained thousands of leaflets on Iraq warning ground troops that if they mobilized they would face bombing raids from the forces assembled on aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and at bases scattered around the region.

President Clinton was scheduled to meet today with his national security advisers to talk about how long the air campaign would continue, but the Pentagon suggested the bombing would go on into the weekend.

In Iraq, at about 4 a.m. today (5 p.m. PST Friday), another air raid was reported under way in Baghdad, according to news services dispatches from the Iraqi capital.

At a briefing Friday afternoon, the military released the first detailed assessment of the damage inflicted on Iraq in the largest military strike ever ordered by Clinton.

While refusing to say exactly how many laser-guided cruise missiles and conventional bombs were hurled against Iraq this week, Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more cruise missiles were launched in the first two days of the air campaign than the 290 or so that were showered on Iraq in 1991. Each of the flying, computer-guided bombs costs about $1 million.

Cruise missiles were not the main weapon of the 1991 air war against Iraq, which relied much more heavily on bombs dropped from B-52 airplanes. But Pentagon planners are anxious to keep the risk of casualties to an absolute minimum in this operation, and cruise missiles do not require human pilots or crews. Cruise missiles also present a lower risk of civilian casualties in Iraq, since they are far more accurate than bombs dropped from overhead, even laser-guided bombs.

Shelton, seeming anxious not to offer the sort of inflated damage assessments that embarrassed the Pentagon during the Persian Gulf War, acknowledged that the results of the U.S. and British air campaign had been mixed so far.

18 of 88 targets

Initial reports from the first two nights of airstrikes on Iraq showed that the Pentagon was able to confirm that only 18 of the 88 targets had been severely damaged or destroyed.

The targets included military command centers, missile factories, television and radio transmitters and an oil refinery in the southern Iraq city of Basra, which the United States said was being used for oil exports in violation of United Nations economic sanctions.

``We have had some very good success with our strikes, but not all of them have gone exactly as planned,'' Shelton said at a news conference at the Pentagon, where he released videotape of laser-guided bombs slamming into a variety of targets.

Senior Clinton administration officials continued to insist that the goal of its military campaign was not to destabilize the Iraqi government or encourage a coup against Saddam. But the Pentagon confirmed reports by the Iraqi government that U.S. warplanes had dropped tens of thousands of leaflets on Iraqi troops in the southern part of the country, informing them that ``only those units that support the Baghdad regime'' are being targeted for attack by U.S. missiles and bombers.

The leaflets, which were printed in Arabic, bore photographs of the charred hulks of Iraqi tanks destroyed during the 1991 Gulf War. ``Your unit has not been targeted but it is being watched,'' the leaflets said, warning the soldiers not to mobilize.

Radio Free Iraq

At the same time, Radio Free Iraq, the 7-week-old, U.S.-sponsored radio network beamed into Iraq and described by the Iraqi government as an anti-Saddam propaganda machine, said it had expanded its programming to Iraq to four hours a day.

Spokesmen for the Arabic-language radio network insisted that the programs were straightforward news broadcasts but acknowledged that they also reported on the activities of Iraqi opposition groups.

In releasing its bombing reports Friday, the United States said it had targeted television and radio transmission towers in hopes of cutting off communication from the central government in Baghdad to Iraqi troops and the public, and it was unclear how many Iraqis may have seen Saddam's defiant television address.

In his speech, the Iraqi leader, dressed in a military uniform and seated beside an Iraqi flag, with an enormous bouquet of red flowers on the table in front of him, offered fierce words that contrasted sharply what U.S. military officials have described as the feeble response of his military to the airstrikes.

``By God, we will not compromise!'' Saddam thundered in the taped address, which was broadcast shortly before air-raid sirens sounded in Baghdad to mark the start of the third night of airstrikes. ``We stand against the barbaric way of those that have used our airspace to launch an aggression against our people. A curse on the agents of Satan.''

He asked Iraqis to ``continue resistance and attack in the name of God, and may the criminals lose,'' and added, ``We will fear nothing but God, and we will not kneel except to the face of God.''

Studying reports

Military commanders at the Pentagon said Friday night they were closely studying new bombing reports from the third day of airstrikes to determine when they could halt the air campaign, which they hope to do this weekend given the imminent start of Ramadan, the month of religious reflection that begins today and is the holiest time in the Islamic calendar.

``We are sensitive to the issue of Ramadan and will take that into account,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen said in an interview Friday night on CNN. ``But there is no fixed end time. We have to keep some flexibility.''

Cohen said the airstrikes would continue until the United States and Britain determined that the bombing had done significant damage to Iraq's ability to make chemical and biological weapons. ``Once those missions are completed, the mission will end,'' he said.

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein blasts the United States in a taped speech aired Friday, telling his nation to resist ``the agents of Satan.''

Associated Press