Iraq Warns of Dire Suffering for Detainees

Their land and sea supply routes strangled, Iraqi officials lashed out Saturday with new threats against detained foreigners.

The infants and elderly among the captive foreigners will suffer the same deprivations as the Iraqis, Baghdad Television warned. Labeling the U.S.-backed blockade of food supplies “an act of war,” a statement by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs read over television declared:

“Their share of the food will be affected by the fact that our supplies of food are reduced. The right solution is for the embargo to end.”

There are about 3,000 Americans believed to be trapped in Iraq and Kuwait since Iraq invaded its tiny neighbor Aug. 2.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council unanimously demanded that Iraq let all foreigners leave immediately, and the U.S. ambassador accused Baghdad of holding them “hostage.” (Story, A18)

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said President Bush is deeply concerned by Iraq’s statement and will consider “additional measures” to protect foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait.

For the last two days, U.S. and British warships in the Persian Gulf have been under orders to block any shipments to Iraq or occupied Kuwait.

“Nobody but the smallest dhow (a fishing boat) could get through the gulf now without being questioned,” Lt. Cmdr. Jerry Stocker, operations officer of the British frigate Jupiter, told reporters in Dubai.

The British officer made his remark before the disclosure that American frigates had fired warning shots over two Iraqi tankers in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Jordan’s King Hussein said last week after meeting with President Bush that his government would apply U.N. trade sanctions against Iraqi supplies moving by land from the Jordanian port of Aqaba, the last open route to Iraq, which imports 70% to 75% of its food. But he has been a reluctant supporter of the sanctions from the beginning, and U.S. officials privately expressed concern that the king may help Iraq obtain basic food and other supplies.

The sanctions were imposed by the U.N. Security Council to force an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, overrun by President Saddam Hussein’s army. The Baghdad statement Saturday accused Washington and London of going beyond the sanctions by imposing a “military embargo,” including food and medicine, and said such an embargo is considered an act of war.

In retaliation, Hussein has refused to permit about 3,000 Americans, 4,700 Britons and several thousand other Westerners to leave Iraq or Kuwait. On Friday, in a move that suggested they would be held hostage in any attack on Iraq, Baghdad said Iraqi and Kuwaiti military and industrial sites--likely targets of an attack--would be used to house the foreigners.

“The peaceful people of Iraq have realized that only this measure will keep the threat of war and aggression at bay and serve the cause of peace,” said Sadi Mahdi, the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament.

The Speaker did not indicate that the hundreds of thousands of Asian and Arab imported workers would be affected.

In Maine, President Bush termed the reported dispersal plan “totally unacceptable.”

Said spokesman Fitzwater: “The use of innocent civilians as pawns to promote what Iraq sees as its self-interest is contrary to international law and indeed to all accepted norms of international conduct.”

Iraqi officers last week ordered all Americans and Britons in Kuwait to report to two seaside hotels. Initial reports from Kuwait indicated that few Americans complied with the order. Washington officials suggested that they would be safer staying in their homes.

Hussein’s embattled regime, diplomatically isolated by all but a few Arab countries and ringed with a growing Western military force, Saturday reiterated its threat to use “weapons of mass destruction,” presumably its stockpile of chemical bombs and shells, against “anyone who was thinking of aggression and turn him into fragments.” The threat was published in a government newspaper.

In the last week, the character of the Persian Gulf confrontation has shifted to mounting military pressure on Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. In the first week of the crisis, American-led troop and naval deployments in the region were focused on the defense of Saudi Arabia, threatened by the takeover of Kuwait and a buildup of Iraqi armored forces near the Saudi border.

It is Hussein and his tight group of top leaders who are now on the defensive, lashing out with ominous warnings in the face of superior forces. Saturday, the French carrier Clemenceau passed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, adding to the air armada facing the Iraqis in the region.

Government officials here in the gulf region speak privately in hawkish words. “Saddam is finished,” said one. “It’s just a matter of time.”

In response, Iraqi leaders counter with often-hollow military threats. Said Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz of the interdiction patrols in the gulf:

“Measures taken by the United States in obstructing and inspecting Iraqi ships represent a precedent that opens the door to whoever is capable of inspecting ships of any country. In the future, Arabs will not be less capable than others.”