U.S. Denies Scope of Gulf Escort Duty Will Grow

The Reagan Administration said Wednesday that Kuwait may rent two U.S.-owned oil tankers to augment its fleet of 11 ships to be re-registered under the U.S. flag, but officials said there will be no need to expand the scope of U.S. naval escorts in the war-torn Persian Gulf.

White House and State Department spokesmen sought to refute a report made a day earlier by Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, that Kuwait was seeking changes in the tanker plan that could double the U.S. military operation, which is expected to begin this month despite continuing apprehension on Capitol Hill.

In the first congressional vote on the controversial issue, the House approved a resolution Wednesday urging the Administration to delay “reflagging” the tankers by 90 days. But the measure, approved largely on party lines in a 221-182 vote, is non-binding and mainly a symbolic gesture.

‘Shot Across the Bow’

“The chances of this resolution making it through the Senate and then being signed by the President is zero,” Aspin said. “What we are doing is sending a signal to the White House. We are shooting a shot across the bow of this Administration, (showing) that we are concerned about the way they are conducting foreign policy.”

State Department spokesman Charles Redman, responding to Tuesday’s report by Aspin on the revised Kuwaiti plans, disclosed additional details of the reflagging of half of Kuwait’s 22 oil tankers to bring them under U.S. protection.

Redman said current plans call for Kuwait to use U.S.-protected ships for about 20% of its exports of crude oil, about half of its much larger exports of refined oil products and nearly all of its exports of liquid petroleum gas.

He said Kuwait was also considering “a commercial charter of two U.S. tankers” in addition to the reflagged ships. But he added, “We see no difficulty in providing escort to these two ships.”

Aspin, speaking at a press conference Tuesday just hours after returning from a committee-sponsored trip to the Persian Gulf region, asserted that the Kuwaitis hoped to double the amount of their oil shipped under U.S. protection, to 70% of their total exports from the 35% envisioned in the Administration’s original plan.

He said the Kuwaitis planned to add ships to their fleet and “shuttle” oil to a port just outside the gulf--and just beyond the reach of Iranian missiles--for transshipment to the ultimate destination, allowing the U.S.-protected tankers to make far more trips through the gulf than originally expected.

Redman said one of the 11 ships to be reflagged would carry crude oil to Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates, a port considered beyond Iran’s military reach, where the oil could be loaded in smaller ships for transportation to its ultimate destination.

Navy Sets Schedule

He said this procedure, which Aspin referred to as “shuttling,” had been intended from the start. Another State Department official said later that the U.S. Navy, not the Kuwaiti government, would determine the schedule for convoys through the gulf.

Redman and White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, using almost identical language, said there was no misunderstanding between the United States and Kuwait over the plan.

“The (U.S.) Navy and Kuwaiti officials have worked together closely on the details of the protection regime for several months,” Redman said. “There is full understanding. There is no justification for any delay. . . . We’re talking about the same regime, the same modalities, that have been on the boards since we began these discussions months ago. The same number of escorts, therefore, are required.”

But the Administration statements did little to satisfy concerns on Capitol Hill, where many legislators oppose the escort operation out of fear for the safety of U.S. servicemen in the region, the site of the 6 1/2-year-old Iran-Iraq War. Thirty-seven sailors on the U.S. frigate Stark were killed in what was apparently an accidental attack by an Iraqi warplane in May.

In the debate on the House resolution, Rep. Dante Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the reflagging policy was poorly thought out and fraught with great danger to America and its allies.

“I cannot see any advantage to be gained by this policy over our present policy in the gulf,” Fascell said. “The thing to do is rethink this whole process through.”

But Democrats were under no illusion that the resolution--authored by Rep. Mike Lowry (D-Wash.) and attached to a $2.8-billion fiscal 1988 Coast Guard authorization--would have any practical effect. Reagan vowed to press ahead with the plan, regardless of congressional opposition.

Republican leaders were highly critical of the measure. House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (Ill.) said: “I’m just nauseated by some of the things I’ve heard here today. This resolution is a product of the Democratic caucus, pure and simple, and it is a slap in the face of the President of the United States.”

The Senate is expected to take up a similar resolution today.