Weinberger Calls for a Multinational Minesweeping Force

The United States is trying to organize an international naval force that could carry out minesweeping operations in the Persian Gulf or other areas of conflict, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said Tuesday.

Weinberger said a variety of reasons lead him to hope that such a force could be organized in the near future but that discussing the reasons publicly would “destroy the hope completely.”

“I would like to see much more of a regular, international minesweeping, counter-mine capability, and I have some hope we’re going to be able to develop something like that before too long,” the defense secretary told a breakfast meeting with Pentagon reporters.

A Broader Responsibility

The creation of such a force would appear to go beyond the immediate help the United States has requested from its allies in clearing mines from the Persian Gulf. It also would broaden the responsibility for protecting oil tankers while lowering the American profile in the region, as many in Congress have sought.

Weinberger said his personal view is that such a force should be “made up of a number of nations that do not have a direct relationship with the Persian Gulf, because it is in the interest of all maritime nations to have international bodies of water kept free of hazards of that kind.”

The British and French governments, reversing decisions of less than two weeks ago, said Tuesday that they will send minesweepers to the gulf region--four and two vessels respectively. But both governments stressed that they would not be operating in coordination with one another or with the U.S. Navy ships in the region, but merely protecting their own naval and merchant shipping.

Also on Tuesday, Weinberger and other Administration officials refused to confirm reports that a U.S. fighter fired two missiles Saturday at an Iranian jet, and they sought to minimize the significance of Iraq’s fighter-bomber attack Monday on Iranian oil facilities that threatened a de facto cease-fire in the air war against shipping.

Noting Iraq’s claims that it was retaliating for an earlier Iranian attack, Weinberger said he did not think “it added very much” to regional tensions. At the State Department, spokesman Charles Redman said that since Iraq attacked Iranian land facilities, it could not be considered to have broken a cease-fire in the tanker war at sea.

While Iraq has “shown restraint” since the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on July 20 demanding that both sides observe a cease-fire, including an end to shipping attacks, “no cease-fire has been agreed to” because Iran has refused to accept the U.N. resolution, Redman said.

Weinberger said the United States is engaged in minesweeping in the gulf area and is already receiving “significant and welcome help from a number of other countries,” which he refused to identify.

“I don’t want to lose the help we’re getting . . . because we are getting the help on the basis of not discussing it,” he said.

Emphasizing what he said is a need for strict secrecy on the movements and tactics of naval escort forces in the gulf, Weinberger refused to discuss news reports that a U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat fired two missiles at an Iranian F-4 fighter on Saturday as a convoy of three Kuwaiti tankers flying the American flag and the American warship escorts passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Administration sources said that the Iranian jet approached an American Orion P-3 patrol plane, part of the escort operation, with what appeared to be hostile intent, but banked sharply and fled when the missiles were fired.

The Iranian plane was said to have ignored repeated demands radioed on an international frequency before finally veering away from the American P-3. However, one source told The Times that the Iranian F-4 had not locked its own targeting radar on the American plane--a customary sign of hostile intent--when the missiles were fired.

Under the rules of engagement in force since the Iraqi missile attack on the frigate Stark in May, U.S. commanders on the scene are authorized to open fire when they perceive hostile intent.

“If a belligerent plane or ship puts itself in a position from which it could deliver a lethal attack,” Weinberger said in explaining the current rules, a commander may “take appropriate action.”

In defending their refusal to publicly detail tactics and incidents, Administration officials said that they want to maximize security for the escort missions and also to avoid the appearance of provoking Iran, through what the Iranians might construe as taunting publicity.

“Our role here is not to provoke, not to get in a war, not doing anything of the kind,” Weinberger insisted. “It is to help non-belligerent shipping in an area where free passage should be guaranteed.”

Questioned about the missile-firing incident, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater refused to confirm it but later said that the President “was informed soon after the incident happened.” Asked what incident he meant, Fitzwater replied: “The incident that I’m not confirming.”

Times staff writers Norman Kempster and Michael Wines contributed to this article.