Will Send Troops to Block Iraq if U.N. Approves Action, Kadafi Says : Libya: Strongman also condemns Baghdad’s use of foreign civilians as hostages.

Col. Moammar Kadafi said Monday that he will support a military blockade of Iraq and contribute troops to an international force if the U.N. Security Council approves such an action.

The Libyan strongman also condemned Iraq’s use of foreign civilians as hostages in Baghdad and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

But Kadafi devoted much of his speech to attacking the United States and its allies for organizing a military blockade in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea without the specific approval of the United Nations, which has approved a trade embargo against Iraq but not a blockade.

He called on the Security Council to condemn the U.S.-led blockade.

“America violated the U.N. charter when it started a blockade using armed forces,” Kadafi said. “What is the difference between the United States and Iraq? Each has violated the U.N. charter, and each should be brought to legal justice before the U.N.”

Without directly attacking Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, he put it this way: “I would say Iraq’s entry into Kuwait is condemned.

“However,” he quickly went on, “the practice of the United States has spoiled everything and given Iraq justification. America is plotting against Iraq.”

Kadafi made his statements to about 100 reporters whom he brought to Tripoli on Libyan charter flights from Paris, Cairo, Tunisia and Malta. Kadafi has increasingly found himself on the margin of Middle East events since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the news conference apparently was an attempt to take the political stage again.

The news conference was held in a tent-like pavilion at the military compound that was hit during a U.S. air strike in April, 1986, in retaliation for what Washington called Kadafi’s support for international terrorism. After the news conference, aides gave reporters a tour of Kadafi’s bombed-out house, where his adopted daughter was killed during the American attack.

Kadafi spoke in front of a bookcase filled with copies of his “Green Book” of political thought, printed in French, Arabic and Spanish. The green-and-white-striped pavilion was protected by bodyguards wearing traditional djellabas and carrying AK-47 rifles. Kadafi, who often wears native Libyan dress, wore a gray silk suit with a black-and-white-striped shirt.

The colonel said he has been unable to contact Iraqi President Saddam Hussein recently, and he blamed the United States for blocking communications between the two countries.

“Contacts between us have been disconnected,” he said. “I could not get in touch with him (Hussein). The United States and its allies are jamming our communications. I tried, but I failed.”

Asked what he would say to Hussein about the estimated 3,000 American hostages and the additional thousands of Europeans in Iraq and Kuwait, Kadafi said: “I am against using civilians and workers as hostages. I am against such bargaining. This is a fixed position.”

Three days after the Iraqi invasion, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization proposed a peace agreement that would have met many of Iraq’s demands for cash, land and oil in exchange for a withdrawal from Kuwait. The proposal derailed an Arab summit meeting that Saudi Arabia was trying to organize in Jidda, and the idea later died.

On Aug. 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hosted an Arab League summit in Cairo. At the summit, Libya was the only country to vote with Iraq against a resolution condemning the invasion and creating a pan-Arab military force to send to Saudi Arabia.

The PLO initially sided with Iraq but then changed its vote after several countries protested. Twelve states voted for the resolution, three abstained and three expressed “reservations.”

Kadafi dedicated the bulk of his press conference Monday to his charges of a U.S. violation of the U.N. charter.

“A dangerous situation exists in the Arab Gulf (the name that most Arabs use for the Persian Gulf) and Red Sea which may jeopardize world peace and security,” he said. “The dangerous situation arises from the practices of the United States. . . . They are invalid under the U.N. charter. . . . The U.S. and its allies came and applied Article 42 by themselves, which renders it invalid by the U.N. charter.”

Article 42 is the provision in the charter that allows a military blockade of a renegade nation only after the Security Council approves the action.

Asked if Libya is respecting the U.N.-approved economic embargo of Iraq, Kadafi said, “America did not give us a chance to apply this initiative.”

He said, however, that he would support a U.N. decision to enforce a blockade with troops.

“If the U.N. Security Council agrees on Article 42, the U.N. would decide which countries would take part. If the U.N. Security Council chose Libya, Libya would abide by that decision,” he said.

Kadafi suggested that if the United Nations does not condemn the U.S. blockade, Libya will consider withdrawing from the world body.

He also attacked Saudi Arabia for allowing foreign troops into the country and called on the Arab League to condemn Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi monarchy, he said “is to be condemned in accord with the charter of the Arab League, the same as Iraq is condemned.”

Kadafi’s residence in the military compound has become a shrine to Libyan resistance against the United States. A gold-framed, larger-than-life portrait of the colonel hangs outside the rubble-filled building.

Downstairs is a tire and part of the fuselage of one of the American F-111 fighter-bombers that took part in the strike. Someone has written the word “crazy” on the tire in chalk.

The broken walls are covered with chalk graffiti. One fragment says, “America Will Pay a Heavy Price.” Members of a visiting Tunisian soccer team have signed their names.

Upstairs, the bedroom in which Kadafi’s 2-year-old adopted daughter died has been preserved. Her bloodstained bed is encased in glass.

So is Kadafi’s bed in his room. He escaped injury in the attack because he was away from the building.