Walters, at U.N., Defends Raid as Last Resort

Just hours after returning from a European tour in which he sought allied backing for U.S. policy toward Libya, U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters on Tuesday vehemently defended the U.S. attack on Libya as a last resort after “quiet diplomacy” had failed.

Speaking to a Security Council session requested by Libya, two other Arab states and the caucus of African nations, Walters cited “direct, precise and irrefutable evidence” of Libyan responsibility for the April 5 bombing of a West Berlin discotheque.

That attack killed a U.S. Army sergeant and a young Turkish woman and injured more than 200 people. It was the immediate reason cited by President Reagan for the U.S. retaliatory attack on targets in Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“When quiet diplomacy, public condemnation, economic sanctions and demonstrations of military force failed to dissuade Col. (Moammar) Kadafi, this self-defense action became necessary,” Walters said.

No Western Support

Although a dozen Arab and Soviet Bloc diplomats excoriated the U.S. action, no Western speaker came to Walters’ support.

Walters also recalled the recent arrest or deportation of Libyan agents in Turkey and France and disclosed a previously unpublicized plot by the Libyan Embassy in Vienna.

“At the time we acted,” Walters told the Security Council, “the Libyan People’s Bureau in Vienna was in the process of plotting a terrorist operation against an unknown target on April 17. We have evidence that Libya is planning widespread attacks against Americans over the next several weeks in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.”

The U.S. ambassador reminded members of the 15-nation Security Council that Kadafi has threatened not just Americans but the entire world community.

“He has made terrorism an integral element of his foreign policy,” Walters said. “Libyan attacks are not simply the random use of violence, but concerted violence directed against the values, interests and democratic institutions of all freedom-loving states. It is a clear assault on international order. . . .”

Libyan Envoy Responds

In reply, Libyan representative Rajae A. Azzarouk charged that Washington was itself guilty of terrorism in bombing Libyan targets without warning, a statement that Walters described as “equating crime with those who fight crime.”

Nevertheless, Arab speakers lined up solidly behind Libya in the debate and were joined by Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, who read a Soviet government statement condemning the U.S. raid.

Ambassador Saoud Ansi of Oman, a Persian Gulf state that provides port facilities for the U.S. Navy, spoke for the Arab group--what he called the “Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.”

Ansi protested the Western view that he said habitually links Arabs with violence, saying, “The Arab nation is against terrorism.

“It would be extremely dangerous,” he said of the U.S. attack, “if the Security Council were not to take a forceful position in condemning this aggression of which Libya has been the victim.”

Syrian Denounces Raid

Syrian Deputy Representative Abdul Moumen Atassi, whose country is widely believed also to shelter and train terrorists, denounced the “brutal and barbaric aggression” carried out by U.S. forces. He challenged Walters to produce proof of Libyan involvement in the West Berlin disco explosion and other incidents.

U.S. officials expressed hope before the Security Council session that a brief Libyan attack on a U.S. radar station on the Italian island of Lampedusa would draw criticism from Security Council speakers. But the incident was mentioned only by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who cited it in deploring both the U.S. attack and the “further utilization of armed force” by Libya and pleaded for peaceful negotiation of the dispute.