TV AND THE GULF WAR : Video Commandos Fizzle on Scene : Media: NBC should change ‘America at War’ to ‘Tom at War.’ The CBS ‘War in the Gulf’ is more like ‘Dan in the Gulf.’

They zoom off to hot spots, joined at the hip.

So naturally these frequent-flying video commandos have been in and out of the Persian Gulf since the start of the crisis there, whether following President Bush or cheering the troops or scrambling for interviews with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And now, with a ground war possibly looming. . . .

They’re baaaaa-ack.

Two of them anyway, as NBC’s Tom Brokaw and CBS’ Dan Rather showed up in Saudi Arabia over the weekend while ABC’s Peter Jennings, whose “World News Tonight” newscast they’re chasing in the ratings, remained in New York, looking quite anchorly and above it all on Monday.

Meanwhile, Brokaw and Rather wore matching bush jackets, used identical props--their heads framed by those familiar blue domes in Dhahran--and reported from an air base. Perhaps the same air base.

Time for title changes. NBC should replace “America at War “ with “Tom at War.” As for CBS, “War in the Gulf” will hardly do now that it’s “Dan in the Gulf.”

Boy Brokaw seems to just go on and on. But for Rather of Arabia--whose troubled “CBS Evening News” shed its executive producer recently amid renewed rumblings that the veteran anchor himself was in jeopardy--the stakes appear particularly high. As crass as it sounds, he may need this ground war to keep his job.

NBC’s John Chancellor has also arrived in Saudi Arabia, and that at least makes better sense, given that he’s a commentator who could gain perspective from being there.

Yet it’s hard to see how the NBC or CBS Gulf coverage will improve now that Brokaw and Rather are personally on the scene. In fact, “Anchors in Arabia” has much less to do with journalism than with image--which in the case of CBS, for example, may somehow translate into ratings that energize a news division whose apparent fragility is epitomized by speculation about Connie Chung becoming Rather’s co-anchor. Yes, Connie Chung.

Anchor glorification is almost as much a part of TV news as pictures. Thus, when anchors become reporters in the field, the emphasis inevitably shifts from the story toward them.

The Gulf is no exception.

With Jane Pauley as co-anchor from New York, Brokaw opened Monday’s “NBC Nightly News” by introducing three Gulf-related stories (two by correspondents in the United States) before getting to his own visit to a Marine fighter pilot base. It was a routine story, except for the generous shots of Brokaw interviewing four pilots facing him in front of a wall of sandbags. Would a regular correspondent get such camera time? Unlikely.

When it comes to filling a newscast with himself, though, Brokaw has much to learn from Rather, who is a human desert, pervasive and endless. You’d think he’d get the message by now that viewers may not want an anchor to be an omnipresent Big Brother of news, filtering events through a single pair of eyes. But noooooo!

On Monday, Rather introduced a spate of stories--most originating outside the Middle East--and narrated a Gulf package before getting to his personal contribution, a visit to that air base, where he interviewed pilots and was captured on camera sitting in the cockpit of a jet.

But “Top Gun” was in even better form on a Sunday night newscast anchored by Paula Zahn, revealing the brilliant logic of his presence in Saudi Arabia. Anchoring from New York, Rather was a relative outsider who was limited to on-air interviews with CBS reporters in the Gulf when it came to what was happening there. So what to do?

He had three choices:

* He could have a reporter in Saudi Arabia interview him in New York about the Gulf. That would be awkward.

* He could interview himself. Also awkward.

* He could fly to Saudi Arabia and he interviewed by someone in New York. Perfect.

So there he was in Dhahran on Sunday night, a couple of days off the plane, sharing his special insights with CBS viewers, with poor Zahn pressed into duty as his New York interviewer.

What effect did Rather think Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz’s Moscow mission would have on President Bush’s “timetable?” He really couldn’t say precisely.

Why did Rather believe “there are such strong feelings that this is the right time” for a ground war? He ticked off “lots of reasons.”

What was Rather’s personal “assessment” of when a ground war would start? He reckoned it could happen in two to three days.

Heck, why else would a couple of VIPs like Boy Brokaw and Rather of Arabia even be there?