Several Pentagon officials have questioned Mr. Clinton's timing to order strikes on the eve of the House impeachment debate. Pentagon sources said National Security Council aides told the Joint Chiefs to quickly update a bombing plan that was shelved in mid-November and were told that a strike would be ordered in a matter of days.

Israeli spokesman Aviv Bushinsky said yesterday in Jerusalem that President Clinton discussed preparations for an attack with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just minutes before Mr. Clinton flew home from Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport on Tuesday, ending a three-day peace mission.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart insisted that Mr. Clinton made the strike decision yesterday based on the U.N. finding of noncompliance. Nevertheless, a senior congressional source, who asked not to be named, said senior Pentagon officers expressed great skepticism to him about the raids. This source said that the White House eagerness to launch air strikes grew with intensity as a parade of centrist Republicans announced they would vote to impeach the president, in a vote originally scheduled for today.

"I have had senior flag and general officers question the timing," the congressional source said. "I have had senior military officers laughing. I hate to say that. ... Why now? He hasn't built a coalition. He hasn't done anything. Why this timing?"

Reporters and others traveling with the president in the Middle East remarked during last weekend that the president seemed uncharacteristically unconcerned about events unfolding in Washington, and several White House aides expressed puzzlement that the president seemed to have lost his "fighting spirit." Mrs. Clinton was noticeably cool to the president as their visit there continued and drew away from him on several public occasions.

The Joint Chiefs were described as strongly supporting yesterday's attack. They wanted to launch missiles in mid-November, after Saddam Hussein evicted inspectors. The president called off the attack just minutes before "H hour" after Saddam promised to cooperate with inspectors......

In August, as Miss Lewinsky finished testimony before a federal grand jury, Mr. Clinton ordered missile strikes against terrorism training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Mr. Clinton's aides initially said the plant produced precursors to VX nerve gas and had ties to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi Arabian who has vowed a reign of terror to rid the Persian Gulf region of Americans.

But administration officials later backed off some claims, saying that precursors were found only in tested soil at the site. Sudan has denied the plant was anything more than a pill factory and invited reporters and international officials to inspect the bombed building.

Republican sources said Congress' near-unanimous support for the August strikes emboldened the White House to use the military again. "Now they feel they have nothing to lose," the source said.

As planning intensified Monday, one officer said, the White House was particularly interested in a statement made Sunday by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he would believe Mr. Clinton's justifications for an attack, Mr. DeLay answered: "No, because he hasn't done that all this year. Remember about the time he was supposed to give the [Paula Jones] deposition in January, he sent the troops and rattled his sabers at Saddam Hussein? Nothing happened. ... I'm suggesting that the president of the United States cannot be believed, and I think it's reflective in his foreign policy. ... Saddam Hussein knows it, and that's why he jerks his chain all the time."

Said John Hillen, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, "You know this is a 'Wag the Dog.'" He was referring to the movie about a fictitious U.S. president who stages a war in the Balkans to divert attention from a sex scandal.

The same conditions that existed yesterday will exist tomorrow, will exist next week," Mr. Hillen said. "The U.S. still lacks a strategic goal. We still only have a rudimentary military plan. I'm hard pressed to figure out in my mind some strategic calculation that necessitates an attack tonight, tomorrow or this weekend."