Shift in Gulf Escorts Timetable Expected

The unauthorized disclosure of the date for starting the U.S. military escort of Kuwaiti oil tankers will almost certainly force the Navy to shift its plans but will not force a major delay in the operation, Reagan Administration officials said Wednesday.

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters after attending a military briefing Tuesday that the operation would begin next Wednesday, July 22, as well as other details about the operation.

Timing and security are two particularly sensitive issues of the Persian Gulf policy. Opponents in Congress have attempted to delay the mission out of concern that it risks drawing the United States into the nearly seven-year-old Iran-Iraq War in the gulf, where 37 U.S. sailors already have been killed in an attack on the Navy frigate Stark on May 17.

Angry Administration officials said Aspin made public information from a classified briefing, jeopardizing the security of the plan to protect the tankers in the gulf.

“It’s not just a cosmetic concern,” a senior Pentagon official said. “We’re dealing with some crazies there.”

Aspin, who has been one of Congress’ leading critics of the escort operation, said none of the officials who gave the briefing described the information about the start of the operation as classified. Those officials were Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci and Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“If this Administration believes a piece of information is classified, it has to tell members of Congress it is classified,” Aspin said, adding that the officials had labeled other information about cooperation from the gulf states as sensitive.

Most Would Understand

But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that “most people over the age of 12 would understand” that the information was not to be divulged.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Robert B. Sims said: “Unfortunately, some sensitive and classified details from those (congressional) briefings were revealed to the press following yesterday’s executive session. As a result, some of those details may have to be changed.”

Sims said the operation may begin “as soon as next week” but would not be more specific.

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Aspin’s disclosure may “alter the timing somewhat” but said the operation would not undergo a major change.

The United States has agreed to a Kuwaiti request that 11 of the small Arab state’s oil tankers be re-registered as American ships and fly the Stars and Stripes. This move would allow the Pentagon to offer the protection given other U.S. vessels in dangerous waters.

The Navy is planning to escort the ships, either individually or in convoys, through the gulf and the particularly risky Strait of Hormuz at its mouth, where the vessels would be within range of Chinese-supplied Silkworm missiles that Iran is planning to deploy on its coast.

Iran and Iraq have attacked each other’s shipping in the gulf, expanding their land war to the waterway and targeting the vessels of third nations that are seen as each other’s suppliers. Kuwait, a political and financial supporter of Iraq, sought U.S. help after its tankers had been attacked and its waters mined by Iran.

Meanwhile, the Senate voted 82 to 16 in favor of a bipartisan resolution urging the President to initiate a full trade embargo on Iran--and to urge other nations to do the same--if Iran mounts a military or terrorist attack on any U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf.

However, Senate Democrats said they would give up their efforts to put the chamber on record as opposing the reflagging operation. The decision was made after the Senate failed for the third time in a week to end a Republican filibuster blocking consideration of a measure seeking to delay the plan.

“We’ve had our shots,” Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said after the third vote. “We’ve sent our message that a majority of this chamber is opposed to this policy.”

The 54-44 Senate vote was six votes short of the majority needed to end the filibuster.