U.S. Asks Britain to Help Sweep Persian Gulf Mines

The United States on Thursday formally requested that Britain provide minesweepers to help in the troubled U.S. effort to protect commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, diplomatic sources indicated.

The request, apparently conveyed in person by U.S. Ambassador Charles H. Price in a 35-minute meeting with Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe on Thursday afternoon, followed reports that West Germany had rejected a similar call for help.

It also comes amid deepening apprehension in several West European capitals about the wisdom of the American action in the gulf.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is expected to confer withHowe and Defense Secretary George Younger before responding, most likely later today.

Britain has had some naval presence in the gulf region to protect British commercial vessels since the early days of the almost seven-year-old war between Iran and Iraq. But no British naval vessel has patrolled in the upper areas of the gulf where the minesweeping would be necessary.

“That would be qualitatively different from what we are doing at the moment,” a Foreign Office official said.

Military analysts here describe the newest of the Royal Navy’s 42 minesweepers as among the most modern in the world, in part because one of Britain’s roles in the Atlantic Alliance is to keep vital northern European sea lanes open in time of conflict.

A Foreign Office official confirmed that Price delivered a message from the Reagan Administration during his meeting with Howe. The spokesman also noted that minesweeping aspects of the gulf crisis had been discussed during the meeting. But he refused to confirm that the message was a request for minesweepers.

Price told reporters as he left the Foreign Office, “We discussed the situation of gulf shipping in general, and beyond that I’m not really at liberty to get into further details.”

Informal comments by Foreign Office and Defense Ministry officials in recent days have reflected a deepening British unease about U.S. actions in the gulf.

While adhering to the belief that freedom of international waters should be defended, they question the Reagan Administration’s high profile and tactics.

Unable to Get Out

“We don’t relish the idea of being sucked in and not being able to get out,” said one British defense official.

One high-ranking British official specifically contrasted the success of the low-profile British naval task force assigned to protect British ships in the region with the initial results of the U.S. action.

Already, the United States has lost 37 sailors to an accidental attack by an Iraqi jet; a supertanker that its ships were escorting has been damaged by a mine, and on Thursday a U.S. Navy helicopter crashed into the sea, killing at least one person.

Two British warships routinely escorted British commercial vessels approaching the Persian Gulf as far as the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz until late last year, when they extended this protection by escorting the ships through the strait into the lower part of the gulf.

Three Ships on Patrol

At present, the frigate Active, the destroyer Cardiff and an auxiliary ship are patrolling the region.

Meanwhile, the French government, embroiled in a diplomatic crisis with Iran, dispatched the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and three escort ships toward the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

France, which broke diplomatic relations with Iran on July 17, says the force is aimed at deterring attacks on French interests in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

In Washington later in the day, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and French Defense Minister Andre Giraud discussed the gulf situation.

Officials said that the United States is also seeking cooperation from Italy, West Germany and the Netherlands in its escort mission.

The Reuters news agency quoted one unnamed U.S. official as saying that “we are talking to a lot of the allies, and things are moving fairly fast. I think the initial soundings are pretty positive.”

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Difficult to Say No

Despite Britain’s lack of enthusiasm for the American tactics and serious reservations by defense experts, political analysts believe that it will be extremely difficult for Thatcher to reject an American call for assistance. Analysts recalled that it was just 16 months ago that she alone agreed to aid the U.S. bombing raids on Libya, allowing the planes to take off from bases in Britain.

An important element of her decision to cooperate then was her belief that to leave America to act alone on such a controversial action could inject serious strains within the Atlantic Alliance.

The opposition Labor Party’s foreign affairs spokesman, Gerald Kaufman, warned against Britain being dragged into “a naval, maritime Vietnam” in the gulf.

No Forecast Possible

“There is the question of the Royal Navy being dragged into an open-ended naval action whose outcome can’t be forecast,” he said. “This isn’t an ‘old chums’ episode in which we say ‘yes’ to the Americans for old times’ sake. The Americans have made fools of themselves. I think our government should say no--I hope it will say no.”

Among Britain’s fleet of minesweepers are 10 ships built between 1979 and 1983 that are equipped with sophisticated electronic detection equipment and submersible vehicles that search out and destroy mines.

In the gulf, a storm was reported to have delayed reloading of the Bridgeton, a Kuwaiti supertanker re-registered to fly the American flag, which sustained a 29-foot gash below its waterline when it struck a mine last Friday in a shipping channel that skirts the Iranian island of Farsi. Despite the damage, the Bridgeton--anchored off Kuwait’s main oil terminal--is to take on about half its 3-million-barrel capacity of crude oil for the return trip down the gulf.