War of Nerves Tests Diplomats at Embassies

A week after they were ordered to clear out, diplomats at nearly 30 embassies in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait remained defiant Saturday, even though their food and water supplies were dwindling.

The staff at the Moroccan Embassy had been marched off at gunpoint, and several other embassies had suspended operations, but most of the diplomats were staying on despite the Iraqi harassment, according to reports reaching here.

U.S. Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell and 10 of his officers and staff were holding out at the embassy, reportedly keeping sporadic contact with the 2,000 or more Americans trapped in Kuwait city.

The Iraqi deadline for closing the embassies expired Aug. 24 at midnight, and the Iraqi director of information, Naji Hadithi, said the next morning, “For the time being, there is no use of force, and I do not think there will be any use of force.”

But Iraqi troops were positioned outside the U.S. Embassy and refused to permit anyone to leave or enter. At last report, the troops were still in place.

Electric power and water lines to most of the major embassies have been shut off. In Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that at the French Embassy in Kuwait the lights were blinking on and off like a nightclub’s.

“It’s a war of nerves,” he said, “a process of asphyxiation.”

Many of the embassies switched on emergency generators and have been able to maintain communications with their governments.

A spokesman at the British Foreign Office said in London that Ambassador Michael Weston, who observed the deadline sipping champagne at his embassy with three of his officers, has been able to get word out that Iraqi tanks were moving on the coast road outside his window.

Ottawa’s External Affairs Ministry reported that water and power had been cut off at the Canadian Embassy but that officers were in contact with Canadian nationals trapped in the city.

“All Canadian and locally engaged staff at the embassy are reported to be well,” a ministry spokesman said.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime ordered the embassies closed down in recognition of his proclaimed annexation of Kuwait following the Aug. 2 invasion.

“It is not a matter of confrontation,” said the Iraqi ambassador to London, Azmi Safiq Salihi. “Rather, it is a matter of sovereignty. By this I mean Kuwait is a part of Iraq, and each country can have only one embassy (in Baghdad) to represent it in Iraq.”

The Moroccan Embassy was forced to close the morning after the deadline when Iraqi troops intercepted its diplomats as they attempted to enter the grounds. The Foreign Ministry in Rabat said a soldier leveled his rifle at a diplomat and told him to “raise his hands and walk a long distance.”

The Moroccan spokesman said: “Diplomats were forbidden access to offices in a brutal manner and were told to close the embassy and leave Kuwait or else other measures would be taken.” Morocco promptly expelled two Iraqi officials from Rabat in retaliation.

In announcing its deadline, the Iraqi government said that officials who failed to comply would lose their diplomatic immunity, would be stripped of all privileges and become subject to detention.