CLINTON: CLOCK'S TICKING FOR IRAQ; U.S. BEEFS UP FORCES IN GULF.

Byline: Peter Slevin and Jodi Edna / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

President Clinton, preparing Americans for potential trouble in Iraq, made clear Friday that the United States will use diplomacy backed by the threat of force to persuade Saddam Hussein to end his defiance of the United Nations.

Diplomacy will be given a chance to work, Clinton said, but he indicated that the clock is ticking toward military action if the Iraqi leader does not permit U.N. weapons inspectors - including expelled Americans - to return to their jobs.

Clinton ordered the aircraft carrier USS George Washington into the Persian Gulf, where it will join the carrier USS Nimitz. He called the deployment ``a prudent measure'' designed to ensure that the United States has sufficient firepower if diplomatic efforts fail.

The aircraft carriers are all the more important because the Persian Gulf states and Turkey are reluctant to let the United States attack Iraq from their bases. The U.S. ships will be backed by a British carrier, the HMS Invincible, which is heading to the Mediterranean from the Caribbean.

The George Washington, proceeding from the eastern Mediterranean, is due in the Persian Gulf in about one week. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said the Americans will work over the next several days to resolve the dispute peacefully.

``We are consulting with our allies on how we intensify the pressure on Saddam Hussein and what should take place if he doesn't reverse himself,'' Berger said after Clinton made a statement carried live on national television.

``This is going to be a long-term enterprise on the part of the international community,'' Berger said, ``to assure that (Saddam) does not once again become a threat to his neighbors or a threat to the region or a threat to his own people.''

The many public comments by Clinton and his most senior lieutenants bespoke patience and resolve. They suggested that the president would wait for diplomacy to work, but not forever.

If missiles must fly or bombs must fall, the president made clear, he wants the American people to see the stakes and risks the way he does.

``This is about the security of the 21st century and the problem everybody is going to have to face, dealing with chemical weapons,'' Clinton said earlier Friday, speaking of Saddam and his arsenal. ``The world has got to understand that he is one of the few people who has ever used chemical weapons against both his enemies and his own citizens.''

The Iraqi leadership again disputed this week's condemnation by the United Nations for failing to comply with the weapons inspection program. Foreign Secretary Mohammed Said al-Sahaf labeled the British government ``stooges'' of the United States and said Iraqis are volunteering to be ``human shields'' to protect factories and other facilities against military attack.

As the stalemate churned through its third week, the United Nations removed from Baghdad all but a few of the inspectors who have been probing Saddam's illicit chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program. Sixty-six staff members flew to Bahrain, leaving 19 colleagues behind in Baghdad and at a nearby airfield.

In Bahrain, the inspectors were to be joined by the six Americans expelled Thursday by Iraq in protest of a Clinton administration attempt to tighten economic sanctions. The United Nations then ordered the pullout on the grounds that Iraq - subject to strict U.N. weapons monitoring since its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War - must not be permitted to influence the composition of the inspection teams.

Despite the unanimous condemnation of Iraq by the 15-nation Security Council on Wednesday, the Baghdad government blames the U.S. government for Iraq's suffering under oil sales restrictions that have cost Iraq an estimated $100 billion since 1991.

Iraqi diplomats want the United Nations to set a date for lifting sanctions before Iraq complies further with weapons inspectors. Berger dismissed the notion, saying it is improper at a time when Saddam is ``in blatant disregard'' of the sanctions and U.N. resolutions.

Clinton went further, saying Iraq has little hope of seeing the sanctions lifted while Saddam remains in power: ``What he has just done is to ensure that the sanctions will be there until the end of time, or as long as he lasts.''

The comment is sure to fuel Iraq's angry claims that the United States will not allow the tight economic grip to be released, no matter what Iraq's authoritarian government does.

Administration officials emphasized that an attack on Iraq is not imminent, unless Saddam launches an attack of his own. The Iraqi leadership has warned, for instance, that it will try to shoot down U-2 surveillance planes piloted by Americans. The next flight of a U-2, which can fly as high as 90,000 feet, is due this weekend.

``If he were to attack one of our aircraft, the U-2, that could invite a rather prompt response. And it would be military in nature,'' said Defense Secretary William Cohen. But he said the U.S. goal ``is not to bomb him into behavior modification.''

Cohen said the George Washington will be accompanied into the gulf by destroyers, frigates and submarines.

With the George Washington, the United States will have about 100 combat aircraft and 50 support aircraft in the region, along with about 18,500 U.S. troops.

U.S. officials, led by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will try to persuade Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states to permit strikes, if necessary, from their bases. Citing regional tensions and the collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace process, they have so far been reluctant.

``We have enormous naval capability, but if you're envisioning sustained military action, you like to be standing on something other than water,'' said Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. envoy who teaches at Georgetown University.