U.S. Sending 8 Copters to Sweep Mines in Gulf : Kuwait, Other States Balk at Landing Rights; Move Seen as a Stopgap Solution to Hazards

Eight Navy minesweeping helicopters are being sent from the United States to the Persian Gulf to clear sea lanes for U.S.-escorted oil tankers, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The deployment, ordered by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, was seen as a stopgap solution to the hazards posed to gulf shipping by underwater mines that Iran is believed to have planted. Last Friday, such a mine damaged the first re-registered Kuwaiti tanker to move through the gulf while under U.S. naval escort and flying the American flag.

Week’s Delay Possible

Because Kuwait and other gulf states have balked at granting landing rights to U.S. forces, it may be a week before the big RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters are in position to begin clearing mines from the gulf’s waters, officials said.

The helicopters were to be loaded aboard C-5 transport planes at Norfolk, Va., and flown to Diego Garcia, a British island in the Indian Ocean where the United States maintains a major naval base.

From there, the choppers and their support crew of about 200 men will be ferried to the Guadalcanal, an amphibious-assault helicopter carrier now in the Indian Ocean on routine exercises. The Guadalcanal will then steam toward the gulf and “be ready to operate the first week of August,” the officials said.

The minesweeping helicopters are not expected to arrive before two reflagged tankers leave Kuwait with their U.S. Navy escorts for the return journey out of the gulf.

“The second convoy operation, at this point, is not being delayed to await these choppers,” according to Pentagon sources quoted by the Associated Press.

Other sources said that the tanker Bridgeton, damaged when it hit a mine near an Iranian-controlled island in the gulf last Friday, is expected to take on a partial load of oil in Kuwait and steam south today or Friday with a second tanker, the Gas Prince.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday granted a “single voyage” permit for the 401,000-ton Bridgeton to take on up to 230,000 tons of oil, move out of the gulf to transfer the oil to other ships and then head for repairs at the emirate of Dubai on the southeastern shore of the gulf.

Shipping sources in Kuwait reported that high winds and waves forced a delay Wednesday in loading crude oil on the supertanker.

After nine-foot waves and 20-knot winds pushed the Bridgeton away from Kuwait’s deep-water terminal, the ship dropped anchor to await calmer weather.

West Germany, meanwhile, said it has turned down a request by Weinberger to help search for mines in the gulf. Defense Ministry spokesman Horst Prayon told a news conference in Bonn that Weinberger had written to Defense Minister Manfred Woerner to ask for West German assistance, news agencies reported.

Restrictions in West Germany’s constitution prevent Bonn from sending naval vessels to the gulf, Prayon said, but he added that Woerner will visit Weinberger in Washington next Monday and will discuss other possibilities of using the West German navy to help the United States.

Prayon did not elaborate, but government sources said the West German navy might undertake additional duties in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, freeing U.S. and British craft for the gulf.

The Bridgeton and the 46,000-ton Gas Prince were the first of 11 Kuwaiti tankers scheduled to be re-registered under the U.S. flag and given protective escorts by the U.S. Navy under an operation that the Reagan Administration maintains is necessary to underscore American determination to keep shipping lanes open in the volatile region.

Iran and Iraq, which have been at war for nearly seven years, repeatedly have attacked each other’s shipping. Iran has also attacked ships from Kuwait, which has supported Iraq in the war.

Officials say that the helicopters being sent to the Persian Gulf can detect mines by dangling sonar equipment in the water and dragging “sled” devices to sever cables that moor mines beneath the water. The helicopters can quickly clear a narrow channel through a mine field, officials said, but are limited in the time they can operate without refueling.

The helicopters often work in conjunction with minesweeping ships, which are more capable of locating mines in deeper water. However, officials said, there are no plans to send any U.S. minesweeping ships to the gulf.

The United States has only three such ships on active duty and 18 assigned to naval reserve units. All are based in the United States, and all are of 1950s vintage.

The decision to dispatch the minesweeping helicopters to the region was made Tuesday night after discovery of additional mines in the same area where the Bridgeton was damaged.