Tunis Assails U.S. Approval of Raid : Reagan Seeks to Placate Arabs as He Backs Attack

As foreign criticism of Israel’s bombing of Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunis mounted, the Reagan Administration on Wednesday gingerly tried to balance its general denunciation of violence in the Middle East with a strong defense of Israel’s action as “understandable.”

Both publicly and privately, the United States also offered condolences to the government of Tunisia for the Tunisian citizens killed in Tuesday’s Israeli air attack on the PLO complex in a suburb of Tunis.

President Reagan dispatched a personal message to Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, and at the White House and the State Department, Administration spokesmen publicly expressed the government’s “sincere condolences” over the loss of life.

12 Tunisians Killed

Tunisian officials said that 12 Tunisians, including eight national guardsmen, were among the 60 people killed in the air strike. The U.S. statements pointedly referred to the Tunisian casualties and did not mention the Palestinian dead.

“We certainly realize that the people of Tunisia do have our deepest sympathy, because people were lost, and it was in their territory,” said White House spokesman Larry Speakes. “But at the same time, we believe in the right of self-defense against terrorism, wherever terrorists may be, wherever they may be harbored.”

Speakes’ statement, which was also issued by the State Department, was partly an attempt to reconcile two dissonant strains in the Administration’s response to the raid.

In the hours immediately following the attack, Reagan and White House aides described Israel’s action as a justified retaliation against terrorism, while Secretary of State George P. Shultz and State Department officials--worried about the impact on proposed Arab-Israeli peace talks--stressed their opposition to all acts of violence.

In justifying the Administration stand, officials recounted a sequence of incidents that led up to the Israeli raid, beginning with Israel’s seizure of three boats carrying suspected terrorists off its coast earlier this year and followed by the Sept. 25 murder of three Israelis in Cyprus.

Sanctions Unlikely

Administration officials said they are still studying the question of whether the Israeli action, using U.S.-built F-16 fighters, violated the Arms Control Export Act, which limits the use of U.S.-provided equipment to defensive purposes. But one senior official said he considers it unlikely that any sanctions will be invoked against Israel for using the F-16s.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Congress will examine the issue of the use of American planes next week when Shultz testifies on the Administration’s plan to sell $1.9 billion worth of arms to Jordan.

“That is a close call,” Lugar said of the question of whether Israel violated the law by using the U.S.-built planes in the attack. “I don’t know. I suspect we will have to look at that.”

Lugar was among Republican leaders who met with Reagan at the White House on Wednesday morning and heard a briefing from national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane on the Israeli attack.

Lawmakers who spoke with reporters after the session appeared generally to go along with the Administration’s contention that the attack was a legitimate defensive response to acts of terrorism.

“I suppose it was reasonable,” Lugar said, “given the sequence of events and given the general problem of terrorism the world faces. Within those events, it was a reasonable response.”

But one Administration official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said the raid has seriously complicated the U.S. effort to bolster Tunisia and its government, which face “a very serious border situation” with Libya.

“We’re trying to be good friends with Tunisia. We are on their side,” the official said. “In the midst of that comes a force of F-16s, and that doesn’t play very well.”

Tunisia, considered one of the most moderate Arab countries, has become increasingly nervous about the intentions of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi in recent months and has turned toward the United States for assurance.

Praise for All

In a speech on U.S. foreign policy Wednesday evening in New York, Shultz praised Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Jordan’s King Hussein, each of whom he said was working for Middle East peace.

Although carefully avoiding any direct criticism of the Israeli attack, Shultz called for restraint that would make the Israeli attack the final chapter in the region’s cycle of violence.

“I say it is time to say enough to violence in the Middle East,” Shultz said. “We have heard the exclamation point of violence. Let us now follow it with a period--a period to signify an end to armed struggle and a commitment to find a negotiated way to peace and justice.”

Shultz said Middle Eastern problems cannot be solved by military means.

“There will be no solution for the Middle East unless it is understood there is no military option,” Shultz said.

Patching Up Relations

In an effort to patch up U.S. relations with Tunisia after Israel used U.S.-supplied aircraft for the attack on the PLO. Shultz praised Bourguiba as a statesman who was among the first to call for a negotiated settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He added that the United States support’s Hussein’s announced willingness to negotiate with Israel. And he said Peres has an unquestioned “commitment to peace.”

Meanwhile, Administration officials Wednesday reiterated their declaration that the United States had no warning of the Israeli operation. None of the U.S. ships in the Mediterranean was in position to detect the flight of the eight Israeli fighters and the tanker that refueled them, a senior official said. Israel has since briefed officials of the State and Defense Department on the operation, one official said.

The most immediate impact of the attack appeared to be a chill on efforts to get the stalled Middle East peace process moving again.

At the time the raid took place, Hussein, who has been pressing for Palestinian participation in peace negotiations and an international conference, was in the United States. In the hours immediately after the attack, he met in private with members of the House and Senate to seek support for the controversial arms sale proposed by the Administration.

Participants in the meetings with the king said Wednesday that he reacted calmly. “He condemned the situation but he also indicated that the peace process must continue,” Lugar told reporters as he left the White House. “He recognized that there will be some hesitation and some halts but that he would not be deterred and we should not either. I think that was probably good advice.”

Arms Sale Briefing

The Administration campaigned for the Jordanian arms sale Wednesday with a background briefing for reporters.

The sale “serves the long-term defensive interests of the United States, Israel and Jordan,” said a senior official who spoke on condition that he not be identified. “It will help facilitate steps toward a just and lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. . . . It is in the interests of all interested in peace that no party, Arab or Israeli, be defeated by blackmail or intimidation.

“It is not a threat at all to Israel, nor does it skew the balance regarding Israel,” the official argued.

The proposed sale includes 40 advanced jet fighters with 300 air-to-air missiles, 72 shoulder-carried Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, 12 Hawk anti-aircraft missile launchers and equipment to make Jordan’s existing fixed Hawk batteries mobile.

Defensible Package

The official called it a “very tight, lean package” that the Administration can defend in Congress.

But Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) and other congressmen said they already are drafting legislation to block the sale, and Lugar said he expects the proposal to fail unless Jordan enters peace talks with Israel.

At the United Nations, Shultz met with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan ibn Abdulaziz. A senior U.S. official said that both Shultz and the Saudi minister “deplored the cycle of violence in the region and agreed that it must not be allowed to frustrate efforts to achieve peace.”