U.S. Authorizes Defense of Neutral Ships in Gulf

President Reagan, escalating the U.S. role in the war-ravaged Persian Gulf, Friday authorized American warships and aircraft to protect neutral tankers from attack by Iranian gunboats and missiles.

Under the new rules of engagement, which Pentagon officials said would not require an increase in the 27-ship Navy flotilla in the gulf, a U.S. captain may respond to an SOS call from a neutral tanker that comes under attack in the vicinity of an American warship.

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, who announced the new policy, said Reagan changed earlier rules of engagement that required the Navy to ignore attacks on neutral shipping while carrying out their mission of protecting U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers.

However, he said, the Navy would not attempt to escort convoys of neutral ships through the gulf. That level of protection would be reserved for vessels flying the American flag.

“We are not the policemen of the gulf, nor do we wish to be,” Carlucci said.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), a frequent critic of Administration policy in the gulf, supported the concept of “random” responses to Iranian attacks on neutral shipping. They would be random because a response would be permitted but not required.

But Nunn and Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia complained that the new policy maintained the Administration’s tilt toward Iraq in the eight-year-old war.

Carlucci insisted that the new policy “should not be construed as a tilt in either direction in the war. Our policy has been and will continue to be one of strict neutrality.”

Carlucci’s statement was carefully drafted to appear to be even-handed. It did not refer by name to Iranian attacks, but it clearly was aimed primarily at them.

“Such aid will be provided to friendly, innocent, neutral vessels flying a non-belligerent flag, outside declared war (or) exclusion zones,” he said.

Most Iraqi attacks have been against ships flying the Iranian flag or against ships within the war zone just off the coast of Iran, which leaves these attacks outside the new U.S. protection policy. Iranian attacks have generally been on neutral ships in international waters trading with Kuwait and other Arab nations along the gulf. The gulf Arab states are technically nonaligned but provide financial and other forms of support for Iraq.

Reagan adopted the policy at a White House meeting attended by Carlucci, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and other top officials.

However, the outcome had been almost a certainty since April 18, when U.S. and Iranian warships fought one of the fiercest naval battles since World War II after a U.S. frigate was damaged by an Iranian mine. Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was already in Europe on Friday briefing U.S. allies on the policy change.

In effect, the new policy was given a tryout during the April 18 battle. American pilots saw small Iranian gunboats attack the Panamanian freighter Scan Bay off the United Arab Emirates. The pilots radioed for instructions and Reagan authorized them to fire on the Iranian boats. The U.S. planes sank one and crippled the other two.

The Navy has maintained a task force in the gulf for years to protect U.S. shipping. Its escort operations for Kuwaiti vessels began last August after 11 of them were re-registered under the American flag.

In recent months, a number of neutral tankers have followed U.S. convoys through the gulf. Although the rules of engagement did not authorize the U.S. warships to protect the “tag-along” ships, Iran did not try to attack them.

A House Armed Services Committee source predicted that the new rules would encourage more ships to tag along because they now will come officially within the convoy’s “envelope of protection.”

The source predicted that Iranian attacks on neutral shipping would decline. However, he said the Iranians could be expected to concentrate on the shrinking number of unescorted ships.

“This (policy) change is almost identical to the change made in December by the British and the French, who now have convoys with lots of tag-alongs,” the congressional source said. “In essence we now have an allied policy.”

During a trip to Brussels this week for a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Carlucci met with his European counterparts to discuss the new U.S. policy and increased coordination of mine-sweeping activities in the gulf. He briefed the defense ministers of Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy on the new U.S. approach. Those nations, plus France, have naval vessels in the gulf as part of a loosely coordinated allied force protecting neutral shipping.

Democratic leaders in Congress urged the Administration to increase its diplomatic efforts to obtain a cease-fire in the war.

“I can’t forget that Iraq started this war; I can’t forget that Iraq killed 37 Americans in one night, hitting our ship with a missile; and I can’t forget that Iraq is using chemical weapons and killing even their own people,” Byrd, the Senate Democratic leader, said. “I think we ought to be very careful that we don’t tilt either way.”

Times staff writer Sara Fritz contributed to this story.