U.S. and British military pounding of Iraq caused major damage to President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard and set back Iraqi missile development by a year or more, the Pentagon said Saturday.

"We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year," Defense Secretary William Cohen said in an upbeat U.S. military assessment shortly before President Clinton announced an end to four days of raids.

The Pentagon said 97 sites had been struck and produced aerial photographs of damaged missile production facilities, collapsed Republican Guard barracks and a large government building in Baghdad hit by three cruise missiles.

Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. warships had launched more than 325 Tomahawk cruise missiles and B-52 bombers had fired at least 90 cruise missiles against Iraqi military and security targets.

Many of the missiles and bombs dropped by U.S. and British warplanes were aimed at Saddam's Republican Guards, who Washington says are essential to keeping Saddam in power and guarding his program of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Shelton said four Republican Guard divisions had been hit and command headquarters and barracks destroyed.

"The majority (of raids) today were directed mainly against Republican Guard units, restrikes of Republican Guard units," Shelton said of the final attacks Saturday, Washington time.

Cohen insisted again that the main aim of the strikes was to degrade Saddam's ability to deliver nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and threaten his neighbors, not to destabilize the Iraqi government.

"It (Saddam's military power) is significantly less in terms of his capacity to move against his neighbors," he told reporters.

Cohen warned that U.S. forces would remain on high alert in the Gulf region. And he insisted that Iraq must eventually allow U.N. arms inspectors to complete their work if it wanted to have international sanctions against Baghdad lifted.

"It (inspections) is not at all a dead issue," he said. But he warned that any return of the inspectors would have to be accompanied by concrete assurances that they could do their work.

"We are not going to simply go through the motions again," Cohen told reporters.

Clinton, who ordered the raids after a U.N. report that Saddam was no longer cooperating with arms inspections, said he had ended them on the recommendation of Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other advisers.

Cohen told reporters the most significant damage had been done to military command targets ­ including Republican Guard facilities in Baghdad, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and in southern Iraq ­ and to a missile program that he said could threaten Iraq's neighbors with chemical and biological weapons.

Shelton said damage assessment was still in the early stages but sea- and air-launched cruise missiles and bombs had caused heavy damage to Republican Guard and other units. He said he could provide no casualty figures.

Twenty-seven of the 97 targets hit before Saturday's round of raids were Republican Guard and other security facilities, and 20 of those were severely or moderately damaged, according to the intelligence director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Navy Rear Adm. Thomas Wilson also produced photographs of heavy damage to the Shahiyat research and development and testing center for liquid-fuel rocket engines in southern Iraq and to the Ibn al-Haytham research and development center for missiles.

"In the primary areas of concern ­ the soldiers that support Saddam's weapons of mass destruction capabilities, his command and control, and the security forces associated with these weapons ­ we have had significant success in our air strikes," Shelton told reporters.

He replied that it was "too early to make that assessment" when asked whether Saddam's forces could still protect the president and help conceal weapons of mass destruction.Reuters