U.S. Reports Tentative Accord With Iraq on Security in Gulf

A U.S. investigative team has pieced together events surrounding the Iraqi attack on the U.S. Navy frigate Stark and reached preliminary agreement with Iraq on preventing further attacks, the leader of the team said Friday.

However, he would not divulge details of the team’s findings or of the agreement worked out with Iraqi officials over three days and nights of closed-door meetings. He also conceded that there is no guarantee that such an attack will not recur.

Rear Adm. David N. Rogers, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with reporters outside the U.S. Embassy to announce the end of the mission to investigate the May 17 attack in the Persian Gulf, which killed 37 American sailors and wounded 21. Iraq said the attack was an error.

‘Established What Happened’

“We have established what happened, and more importantly, we’ve reached preliminary agreement with recommendations for a mutual agreement between the two countries to prevent this type of thing happening again,” Rogers said.

Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two sides worked out a system of coordination that will prevent Iraqi warplanes from mistakenly hitting American warships patrolling the strategic waterway.

The latest information indicates that a single Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter-bomber fired two Exocet missiles into the American frigate as it patrolled the central sector of the gulf, according to congressmen who were briefed Thursday in Washington by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Iraq said its pilot thought the vessel was Iranian.

“Any time that there are forces that are operational in proximity, I can’t tell you it will never happen again,” Rogers warned.

“But I can tell you we’ve reached preliminary agreements . . . which will dramatically reduce the possibility it will happen again,” he said.

On Friday, two U.S. senators, John Glenn (D-Ohio) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), inspected the crippled missile frigate, anchored off Bahrain. They are part of a fact-finding delegation sent by the Senate.

The two met with Rear Adm. Harold Bernsen, commander of the U.S. Middle East Task Force, then boarded the Stark, according to U.S. sources in the region.

Rogers said his nine-member team of Air Force, Navy and Army specialists is certain that “we have the information to piece together what happened” in the attack on the Stark.

However, he declined to say if the Americans were allowed to talk to the Iraqi pilot who carried out the attack. On Thursday, Rep. Bill Nichols (D-Ala.) said congressmen were told at the Pentagon briefing that U.S. investigators interviewed the pilot.

‘Cooperation, Forthrightness’

Rogers stressed that the Iraqis have shown a “spirit of cooperation and forthrightness” although he earlier said “differences of opinion” with them had surfaced.

He declined to say what the snags were. However, Western diplomats said they apparently centered on Iraq’s reluctance to divulge how its air force operates and what kind of weapons payloads its French-built Mirages can carry. The air force is Baghdad’s most potent offensive weapon in its 6 1/2-year-old war with Iran.

The deal worked out in Baghdad will have considerable bearing on the U.S. Navy’s operations in the Persian Gulf. The American vessels are to escort 11 state-owned Kuwaiti tankers that are being registered under the U.S. flag to protect them from Iranian attack.