POLITICS OF WAR AND AGONY TO ACHIEVE THE FINAL PEACE

In this modern era of computerized warfare, a command-and-control center is not all that difficult to detect. Highly sophisticated monitoring and surveillance systems such as satellites and ground-based listening devices can locate such facilities with near pinpoint accuracy. In the field of electronic detection gadgetry, the United States is in a class by itself no other nation is even a close second.

The concrete, reinforced building that was bombed earlier this week in a residential neighborhood in Baghdad was clearly and convincingly being used as a command-and-control center. The building underwent a structural reconfiguration in 1989 to make it suitable for military purposes and military signals were being emitted from it. These facts made the structure a significant military target -- of a type the Iraqis knew we would seek out.

The answer to why Saddam Hussein would allow numerous civilians into an obvious military target can only be found in the unique thought patterns of this diabolical man.

A military participant in a war has the right to seek out and destroy significant military targets. But there are often political consequences to a military decision. For example, President Bush is delaying longer than he originally intended the ground offensive into Kuwait in order to save American lives. Bush could win the war earlier, but at the cost of more American dead. He opts to win it several weeks later in order to save American lives. That's essentially a political decision.

It now appears that in a two-floor basement in the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad is another significant command-and-control center perhaps the last secure transmission lines to Iraqi forces in Kuwait. The center contains coaxial cable, microwave equipment and telephone networks. American military people are convinced that all other major Iraqi communication centers have been destroyed. This remains as Saddam's last mini-Pentagon. It is the juiciest military target left in Baghdad. Yet a political decision has been made not to bomb it because the Rashid Hotel houses hundreds of civilians, including journalists from all over the globe. President Bush has decided that the political ramifications of obliterating this particular target are more devastating than the target itself.

Just as the President must accommodate political realities at home by keeping American casualties to a minimum, so too must he accommodate to political realities worldwide in keeping Iraqi civilian casualties to a minimum. America wants not only to win a war, but also to win a peace. Should the point arrive where the United States is viewed worldwide as a reckless exterminator of Arab civilians, then the peace will not be won. Our allies and especially our Arab allies have a political tolerance level with respect to civilian casualties just as President Bush does with respect to the lives of his troops.

The generals were correct in the selection of last week's Baghdad target. Throughout the war, they have been meticulously trying to avoid civilian casualties. From here on they will have to be even more meticulous. In fact, U.S. military commanders were quoted as saying they "may adjust their targeting of sites as to avoid any repetition" of Wednesday's bombing raid.