U.S. to Help Some Neutral Gulf Ships : Navy’s Wider Role Aimed at Curbing Iran Raids, Congressional Sources Say

The Reagan Administration, expanding the role of U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf, has decided to authorize them to aid some neutral ships under Iranian attack, congressional sources said Friday.

The new rules of engagement, which were not publicly announced, go far beyond the role originally prescribed for U.S. forces in the gulf last May, when President Reagan ordered them to begin escorting 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers that had been re-registered under the American flag.

Although many members of Congress have expressed fears that U.S. forces are being drawn into an escalating war with Iran in the gulf, sources said congressional leaders voiced no opposition when they were briefed on the new policy by Defense Department officials Friday.

Nunn Urged Policy

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) issued a statement suggesting that he approved of the new policy. And aides noted that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) had been pleading with the Administration to permit American forces to come to the aid of other ships under attack in the gulf.

Navy ships, according to sources, will be authorized to intervene if they witness an Iranian attack on a neutral vessel and if they are in a position to help. But the new policy does not provide U.S. naval escorts for ships other than those flying the American flag.

“It’s a random, target-of-opportunity approach designed to throw the Iranians off guard,” a source told the Associated Press.

Although these sources were willing to characterize the new policy in general terms, the precise rules of engagement remain classified. Aspin said it is necessary to keep the rules of engagement secret so the Iranians do not know which ships will be defended by U.S. forces and which will not be.

“We are trying to deter the Iranians from violent action in the gulf,” Aspin said in a statement issued by his office. “When they know what the rules of engagement are, they can work around them.”

Previous Attacks Noted

Aspin noted that the Iranians had attacked neutral vessels in plain view of U.S. warships ever since the Administration announced that it did not intend to come to the aid of any ships not flying the American flag.

Although Nunn had urged the Defense Department to provide protection for all neutral shipping in the gulf, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) had called for extending such protection only to U.S.-owned ships sailing under other flags.

A White House official, who declined to be identified, said the rules of engagement actually were expanded Monday after U.S. A-6 attack planes witnessed a Panamanian-flag ship with 15 American crew members under attack near the Mubarak oil field in the southern gulf. In response, the Administration approved air strikes on three Iranian speedboats.

Previously, the U.S. ships had to wait until a Navy vessel or U.S.-flag carrier had been attacked. Current rules allow response in case of any attack to a ship asking for U.S. help, according to the White House official.

The decision now facing the Administration, according to this official, is whether U.S. forces should continue to operate under these expanded rules of engagement or whether the rules should be limited.

“We know that we cannot expand the assets we have there,” the official said. “We would continue the close protective escort. If an opportunity presents itself to step in or prevent an attack on a ship of a friendly country, that is the issue, whether we would step in.”

Allies to Be Briefed

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, who briefed members of Congress about the change Friday, is expected to give a similar briefing to North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in Brussels over the weekend. The White House official said the change in policy could be modified after Carlucci discusses it with the allies.

“A lot of people on (Capitol) Hill have been calling for it. We want to make sure we don’t overextend ourselves,” he said.

The more liberal rules of engagement became known a day after the Defense Department announced that it will dispatch 13 new warships to the Persian Gulf region.

Although department spokesmen described the deployment as a “long-planned rotation,” officials privately conceded that some of the ships might arrive before some of those there now are withdrawn, leaving a beefed-up American presence in the gulf.

Monday’s hostilities in the gulf, which led to the decision that American forces will selectively aid non-U.S. ships in the oil-rich region, followed by four days the crippling of the U.S. frigate Samuel B. Roberts by an Iranian-planted mine after it had escorted a U.S.-registered Kuwaiti tanker through the gulf.

U.S. forces began the action by destroying two Iranian oil platforms in the gulf that had been used as command-and-control radar sites for Iranian naval forces. When Iranian ships attacked U.S. and neutral forces elsewhere in the gulf, U.S. warships and bombers struck back, damaging or destroying two Iranian frigates, a missile boat and the three speedboats.

On Friday, Pentagon officials said that Navy minesweepers had detonated five mines that were found earlier in the week by a French vessel near an offshore Iranian oil platform in the gulf. The mines reportedly carried serial numbers indicating that Iran manufactured them.