Britons Proud of Kin on Iraqi TV--and Afraid

Alma Morton was a picture of strength and pride Friday as she discussed her family’s appearance with President Saddam Hussein on Iraqi television a day earlier.

“I was very pleased with my daughter-in-law, the way she spoke up,” Morton said. “I thought she was very, very brave. And my little grandson, too. The other two boys didn’t look very happy.”

Then she seemed to be struck by the full force of what is happening in Iraq.

“The eldest grandson, I think he’ll be a good support to his mum,” Morton said, her voice trembling. “The other two boys won’t understand what it’s all about, I don’t think. The middle one--it’s his birthday on Tuesday, which is very sad. But, well, you have to just pray and hope.”

Then she burst into tears.

Her reaction was typical of the way many Britons have reacted to the television appearance of Hussein with a group of hostages, including some of the estimated 135 British hostages caught up in his “human shield” scheme.

In the halls of government and on the front pages of London’s morning papers, there was a torrent of outrage over the television program, which was taped and shown here.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called it “quite sickening.” And Douglas Hurd, her foreign secretary, said it was “the most sickening thing I have seen for a long time.”

The Foreign Office issued a statement that said, in part, “This repulsive charade takes to new extremes the hypocrisy of Saddam Hussein and his callous disregard for human rights and individual feelings.”

“Clutch of the Devil,” the Daily Star declared, referring to pictures of Hussein with an arm around a British boy and patting his head. “A Caress of Evil,” said the tabloid Today.

Even the conservative Daily Telegraph headlined its story of the incident: “British children in TV ordeal with Saddam.”

British psychiatrists analyzed the tape, and political analysts scrutinized scenes of hostage boys playing soccer, chess and video games in search of clues as to the hostages’ whereabouts.

The families of the hostages seen in the video were far more restrained, however. Relatives of those who seemed uncooperative expressed pride.

The tape showed 4-year-old Elliot Pilkington apparently trying to punch the Iraqi president, and Wade Pilkington, an uncle, told a newspaper interviewer here: “I can’t imagine he would have been happy being used as a pawn.”

George Morton, Alma’s husband and the grandfather of the three Morton boys shown with Hussein, said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television: “Well, I was overjoyed. I mean, we do realize now that they are alive and, well, they look very well. But where are they now? That’s what I’d like to know. Where are they now?”

Morton, 68, paused, his anger beginning to swell, and he went on:

“All I can say is, why don’t they let all these people go and let these big officials get ‘round the table and talk it all out and try and sort something out about it? Nobody wants a war. It’s going to cost a lot of lives unnecessarily. Let these people come home, and let the big boys get ‘round the table and talk about it. Get it threshed out. That’s my opinion about it.”

Morton’s reaction was described as typical of British grass-roots opinion on the Persian Gulf crisis. About 4,700 British nationals were trapped in Iraq and Kuwait when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.

A poll commissioned by the Independent daily newspaper indicated Friday that 87% of the people approve of Thatcher’s hard-line position in the crisis but that only 58% agree that Iraqi military bases should be attacked “even though Western hostages may be held there.”

Only 52% said Britain should add to its military forces in the gulf region, where it now has three squadrons of fighter planes and several frigates.

Six in 10 supported what many Londoners have described as the simplest solution: Send an undercover team to Baghdad to assassinate Hussein.