Saudis to Sweep Gulf for Iranian Mines Off Kuwait

Saudi Arabia has agreed to sweep the dangerous waters off Kuwait for mines that Iran may have begun to lay in response to the U.S. plan to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf, diplomatic and congressional sources said Tuesday.

The move was praised by a Reagan Administration official, who said it represented the sort of cooperation “we’d like to see” in the tense region.

Only a day earlier, the State Department announced that Saudi Arabia and the United States were close to an agreement that would extend surveillance by Saudi AWACS radar planes to the entire gulf.

Until now, Saudi Arabia has distanced itself from matters involving military conflicts in the gulf, where Iran and Iraq have been at war for nearly seven years. The Riyadh regime has refused to allow U.S. F-15 fighter jets, which could provide air cover for the tanker escort operation, to use Saudi bases.

However, the Saudis’ willingness to sweep the waters off Kuwait--where four tankers of various nations have struck mines recently--was viewed as a significant diplomatic and symbolic signal to the United States, which has encountered difficulties in gaining support for its gulf policy among its traditional allies.

The Administration’s escort plan, designed to underscore U.S. determination to keep open the waterway used to carry oil from the petroleum-rich region, has been attacked at home and abroad. The policy has raised fears of risk to U.S. forces in the region, particularly after last month’s Iraqi attack on the Navy frigate Stark, which killed 37 sailors.

Congressional concerns about the plan were delivered directly to President Reagan on Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and other GOP senators during a White House meeting.

“There are a lot of questions on the minds of the American people, and I don’t think they’ve yet been resolved,” Dole said after the session. “I think there are a lot of legitimate questions about the threat, about the risk--about if there are no risks to any of our ships, is there an increased risk of terrorism? Are we inviting terrorism?”

The Democrats’ leaders in Congress plan to meet today to consider legislation that could restrict the operation, although sentiment for trying to block the escorts has waned, a congressional staff member said. A more likely response would be an attempt to put a deadline on the escort missions and to require the Administration to seek more help from U.S. allies.

The possibility of Iranian mines in the gulf has recently become a paramount concern of U.S. officials. Four ships have been damaged by mines since mid-May near the edge of Kuwait’s territorial waters in the channel leading to its main oil refinery.

Kuwait in the last two days asked Saudi Arabia to begin using helicopters in an effort to find and detonate the mines. The Saudis agreed to do so and relayed their decision to U.S. and Kuwaiti officials Tuesday, a diplomatic source said.

Copters to Drag Sleds

The Saudi anti-mine effort will involve the use of American-made helicopters to drag special sleds through waters near Kuwait to search for the explosives, said the diplomatic source, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name.

An Administration official, noting that the Saudis use the gulf to transport their own oil as well, acknowledged that minesweeping also benefits them, saying, “I’m sure they’re protecting their own ships that way.”

The sweeping, one congressional staff member put it, “is more a political sign than (a matter) of military significance.”

Even California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), who has been a harsh critic of U.S. weapons sales to the Saudis, called the minesweeping agreement “constructive action on their part (which) will be welcome.” Levine said, however, that the Saudis “have a lot of ground to make up--they have a long way to go.”

In addition to the anti-mine effort, the Saudis have agreed to provide “emergency” and “humanitarian” support for the U.S. escort mission by designating hospitals to which American servicemen would be taken in the event of an attack on U.S. forces. U.S. officials are not sure, however, how broadly the Saudis intend to interpret the emergency category, a congressional source said.

The diplomatic source defended Riyadh’s decision against allowing U.S. F-15s to use Saudi bases, saying “no one has shown (an) operational need” for air cover. The Saudis are unwilling to allow an expanded American presence “for just politics,” he said.

As part of the escort plan, the Navy intends to station an aircraft carrier far enough north in the Arabian Sea so that carrier-based planes could cover the Strait of Hormuz at the gulf’s mouth. U.S. officials had asked the Saudis to allow land-based fighters to operate from the kingdom’s bases to make air cover available in the upper gulf as well.

The Navy escorts are expected to begin within weeks, once the process of re-registering the 11 Kuwaiti tankers under the American flag is completed, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. On Tuesday, the guided missile destroyer Kidd and guided missile frigates Klakring and Flatley reached the northern entrance of the Suez Canal en route to join other U.S. Navy ships on patrol in the gulf.

The so-called “tanker war” continued as Iraq claimed that its forces rocketed and sank a “very large naval target”--its usual term for a ship--heading for an Iranian port in the northern gulf. The ship was not identified, and gulf-based shipping sources could not confirm the claim.