Democrats Dislike Escort Plan, Find No Alternative

After a month of criticizing the Reagan Administration’s policy of stepping up U.S. military involvement in the Persian Gulf, Democratic congressional leaders found themselves unable to agree on an alternative after a series of meetings Thursday.

“There’s no consensus,” House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) acknowledged after a breakfast meeting with Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Democratic committee chairmen from both houses. He called for a meeting with President Reagan on the issue early next week.

Nor have Republicans with reservations about Reagan’s course reached agreement on what to do. North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, one of several Republicans who offered resolutions in the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday to curb Administration plans, said he does not like elements of the policy but that he does not want to undercut the President. “We’re in a position of trying to unscramble an egg,” he said.

The critics’ failure to develop consensus support for an alternative, members of Congress said, provided a sharp reminder of an essential fact: Although the Reagan Administration’s power and influence have been sharply reduced by the continuing Iran- contra revelations and the GOP’s loss of the Senate last year, the initiative remains in the hands of the President, at least in matters of foreign policy.

“Even as enfeebled as this (Administration) has become,” said California Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), “the executive branch has a tremendous amount of power in foreign affairs.”

Administration critics now say their best hope is that Reagan himself will quietly decide to delay plans to have U.S. warships escort Kuwaiti oil tankers--newly registered to fly under the American flag--through the Persian Gulf. The gulf has become an increasingly tense area in the long war between Iran and Iraq since the U.S. Navy frigate Stark was crippled by two Iraqi missiles last month.

Wright, Byrd and other members of the Democratic and Republican leadership hope to meet with Reagan early next week to discuss a delay. They have no guarantees, however, that a meeting can be arranged before the escorts begin, which could be as early as July 1, a senior aide to the Democratic leadership said Thursday.

The Administration argues that its plan to begin escorting 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers through the troubled gulf is essential to underscore U.S. determination to keep open the supply lanes from the petroleum-rich region. Critics from both parties have charged that the policy could drag the United States into the middle of the war, in which Kuwait is allied with Iraq.

As recently as the beginning of the week, congressional Democrats spoke confidently of producing legislation to delay Reagan’s escort plans. But after Thursday’s meetings, their tone had shifted.

A ‘Maybe’ Vote Preferred

Rep. Jim Courter (R-N.J.), a supporter of the escorts, put it bluntly. “The most open secret in Washington,” he said, “is that given the opportunity, we in the Congress prefer to vote ‘maybe.’ ”

Members of Congress from both parties have criticized the escort policy, particularly since May 17, when an Iraqi plane attacked the Stark, killing 37 on board.

But fear of deeper involvement in the Iran-Iraq War has been balanced by fear that any public repudiation of the policy would drastically weaken U.S. credibility in the Middle East. “We have no good options,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) said.

Those overlapping fears have combined to produce legislative gridlock.

“There’s not going to be a vote to bar (the escorts). There’s not going to be a vote to endorse it,” said one chief congressional aide. “There’s a growing number saying silence is golden.”