35 Americans Spirited Out of Baghdad Hotel by Iraqis

The Bush Administration said Friday that Iraq had spirited 35 captive Americans from a Baghdad hotel to an undisclosed location, as a senior Iraqi official added to worldwide hostage jitters by declaring that the citizens of “aggressive nations” would not be freed so long as Baghdad faces the threat of war.

“The people of Iraq have decided to play host to the citizens of these aggressive nations as long as Iraq remains threatened with an aggressive war,” Sadi Mahdi, Speaker of Iraq’s Parliament, was quoted as saying in a speech reported by the official Iraqi news agency.

Other Iraqi officials have made similar statements in recent days, but each time the government in Baghdad has sidestepped the question of whether the statements reflect official policy. U.S. analysts have interpreted this as a kind of cat-and-mouse game on Iraq’s part in its war of nerves with Washington and its allies.

Thus on Friday, while Iraqi officials insisted that the 35 Americans were in no danger, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher accused President Saddam Hussein’s government of violating “international norms” by moving them secretly and by refusing to let U.S. diplomats visit them in their new location.

Boucher’s statement was made before news reports of the declaration by the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, and no immediate reaction to it was available.

“This measure will remain in force until such time as tangible and sufficient guarantees are forthcoming for the people of Iraq that the danger of oppressive aggression has passed,” Mahdi reportedly said, singling out U.S. officials for what he called “going out of their way to take hostile and unjust stands toward Iraq.”

At the same time, Iraqi military authorities took no action to enforce their ominous order, issued Thursday, for all Americans and Britons in occupied Kuwait to report to two hotels. Boucher said only five of the estimated 2,500 American citizens in Kuwait had obeyed the instructions.

So far, Boucher said, the Iraqi army has not followed through on its threat to round up Americans or Britons who fail to comply with the order voluntarily. The order has not been repeated, but neither has it been rescinded, he added.

The 35 Americans in Baghdad include 11 oil workers and 24 other Americans who were evacuated from Kuwait shortly after the Iraqi invasion and have been held, under armed guard, at the Oberoi Rashid Hotel. (The number previously was reported to be 38, but one of the Americans, 10-year-old Penelope Nabakov, was allowed to leave, and two others were erroneously included in the count although they were staying at another hotel.)

Until Thursday, Boucher said, U.S. diplomats had visited the Americans regularly. However, Iraqi authorities prohibited embassy personnel from entering the hotel Thursday, and when the diplomats returned Friday, the Americans were gone. Boucher said that buses were seen leaving the hotel Thursday evening, apparently carrying the Americans.

Boucher said the Americans were probably taken to the Melia-Mansour Hotel, where several Britons have been held since the invasion began. But he said there is no way to be sure because U.S. diplomats have been denied access to the Melia-Mansour.

“The Iraqis continue to tell us that Americans and other foreigners are safe and that the question of the status of foreigners is being considered at senior levels of the Iraqi government,” Boucher said.

Although the 35 people moved from the Oberoi Rashid appear to be the only Americans in detention, another 530 Americans in Iraq and about 2,500 in Kuwait have been refused permission to leave. Most other foreigners in both countries, perhaps as many as 3 million, are in the same predicament.

At the United Nations, the Security Council expressed “concern and anxiety” about the plight of foreign nationals in Kuwait and Iraq and urged Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to take action to obtain their release, Reuters reported from New York. The council did not specify what action it had in mind.

Britain brought the issue before the Security Council with the support of the United States.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said in Kennebunkport that the United States is talking with other governments whose citizens are being held under similar conditions, “to get everyone working in concert, to make sure they are safe and accounted for.”

“The official Iraqi position is everyone will be allowed to leave,” Fitzwater said. “(The Iraqis say) they are not being detained and shouldn’t fear harm. We have not seen anything to indicate they are not safe.”

The Administration believes that Americans are not being singled out--that similar difficulties are being faced by Soviets, Britons, Japanese, Filipinos and Egyptians, among others--and that there is no reason to give up hope on getting them out without incident.

It is certainly in the Administration’s interest to keep the situation from degenerating into a hostage crisis for as long as possible. Bush’s ability to maneuver will be sharply restricted if it becomes clear that Iraq is using American citizens to bring pressure on the U.S. government.

With the families and friends of 3,000 potential detainees demanding action, Bush’s options would be severely restricted, and he would come under heavy pressure to do something quickly.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials said Iraq’s explanations for the handling of foreigners have verged on the ludicrous.

Boucher, for example, was asked if the Iraqis had given a reason for moving the 35 Americans from the Oberoi Rashid Hotel. “Well, I will tell you this because you ask,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s a justifiable reason for moving people around, and I can’t even say that it’s the reason rather than some pretext, but what they told us was that the hotel had been overrun by the media.”

Boucher said there had been no further explanation of Iraq’s order to Americans and Britons in Kuwait to congregate in specified hotels. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad protested the order and called for it to be lifted.

“Five American citizens went to the (Kuwait) International Hotel (as ordered),” Boucher said. “When they arrived at the hotel, they couldn’t find any Iraqis. The hotel gave them free room and board for the night, and we understand that they may decide to leave and return to their homes.”

At the United Nations, Security Council President Aurel Munteanu of Romania said Council members discussed the plight of foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait for more than an hour.

“The members of the Council have asked me, as their president, to express to the secretary general their concern and anxiety about the situation of foreign nationals in Kuwait and Iraq and to ask him to take all steps which he considers appropriate in this regard,” Munteanu said, without elaborating.

Asked whether the Council expects Perez de Cuellar, now on a visit to his native Peru, to send an envoy to Baghdad, America’s U.N. ambassador, Thomas R. Pickering, told reporters, “We are leaving it at the moment to his good judgment precisely how he carries out his mission of good offices.”

Earlier in the day, members of a Security Council committee created to monitor the economic sanctions against Iraq met privately, but members later said the discussion did not include the U.S. decision to forcibly stop commercial shipping bound for Iraq.

Some Security Council members have expressed misgivings about the legal authority for a naval blockade without further action by the Council. At a news conference in Lima on Thursday, Perez de Cuellar said that the use of military power to enforce U.N. sanctions against Iraq violates the U.N. charter unless the Security Council approves it.

However, U.S. officials have made it clear that Washington believes that it has ample authority to enforce the embargo with or without a U.N. role.