Iraqi Ship Is Seized by U.S.; Cargo Diverted : Gulf crisis: Armed sailors board vessel bound for home port of Basra with a load of Sri Lankan tea. Action is the first use of force to carry out U.N. embargo.

The U.S. Navy seized an Iraqi freighter in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday, the first time that the American military has used force to divert cargo bound for Iraq under the U.N. trade embargo.

Armed sailors and coast guardsmen from the guided-missile destroyer Goldsborough boarded the Iraqi motor vessel Zanubia early Tuesday morning after determining that the small freighter was bound for the Iraqi port of Basra with a load of tea from Sri Lanka.

“He was directed to divert to his port of origin or to some other non-prohibited port,” the Navy said in a statement. “He refused, so he was boarded by a party from a small boat.”

Members of the U.S. boarding party took physical control of the 268-foot ship and reportedly were steering it toward the port of Muscat in Oman on Tuesday night.

The Zanubia is a 3,549-ton dry cargo freighter based in Basra at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. Taking normal sailing times into account, the ship almost certainly left Sri Lanka after the United Nations voted an embargo on trade with Iraq following Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, although Sri Lanka has promised to abide by the terms of the blockade.

Crew members of the Iraqi ship offered no resistance and have not been arrested, officials said. “They’re simply on the ship,” said Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams. “They’re along for the ride right now.”

Baghdad has ordered its commercial ship captains not to challenge U.S. and other warships engaged in enforcing the blockade.

American boarding parties consist of about a dozen sailors and coast guardsmen armed with automatic rifles and shotguns. Officers from the Coast Guard are included because of their knowledge of law enforcement on the high seas and their expertise in inspecting cargoes and shipping manifests, officials said.

Maritime experts said that ships seized under an internationally recognized embargo are subject to forfeiture and that the ships and their cargoes can be auctioned to pay the costs of enforcing the embargo. The United Nations has not yet spelled out procedures for enforcing its embargo, however.

The fate of the crew members of the Zanubia is unclear, but it appears unlikely that, once docked in Muscat, they would be detained.

On Aug. 25, the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to police the blockade on sea trade with Iraq. The U.N. embargo prohibits all cargo bound for Iraq except medicine and humanitarian food supplies.

U.S. warships in the Middle East now have boarded and inspected 20 ships of various nationalities in the Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The Zanubia was the first to be seized.

The only other boarding of an Iraqi ship took place last Friday, when sailors from the Navy cruiser Biddle boarded an outbound Iraqi oil tanker in the Red Sea. The ship was allowed to proceed when it was found to be empty.

Several other Iraq-bound ships have been turned away or volunteered to change destination when challenged by the Navy, officials said. The Navy fired warning shots across the bows of two empty Iraqi tankers on Aug. 17, but the ships were not challenged when they refused to halt.

Since mid-August, the Navy has conducted a total of 550 “intercepts” of commercial shipping in the region, ranging from radio interrogation to Tuesday’s seizure of the Zanubia.

Meanwhile, in Newark, N.J., the Customs Service detained a Kuwaiti container ship to examine the cargo to see if anything was destined for Iraq, the Associated Press reported. Authorities said the vessel, Al Wattyah, was being treated as an Iraqi ship because of Kuwait’s annexation by Iraq. The ship’s destination was not known, a customs agent in Newark said.

While the naval blockade has succeeded in interdicting an estimated 90% to 95% of goods destined for Iraq, material continues to seep into the country through the air and overland.

Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the United States should extend the blockade to air shipments, even if it means shooting down airliners and cargo planes.

“You can force planes down,” Aspin said. “You do it the way you try to get drug smugglers--you try to force them down. And if you (cannot) force them down, you try to take them out.”

He said that the United States should seek U.N. approval for any such extension of the embargo.

However, the White House on Tuesday rejected suggestions that it extend the blockade to the air.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that some aircraft had brought a “small amount” of cargo to Iraq, but he termed the leakage too little to “really affect the overall effectiveness of the embargo.”

“Our conclusion is that the embargo is working as it is now being implemented, and we see no reason to change it,” Fitzwater said.

Aspin, just returned from a tour of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, also said that the Administration should call up combat troops from the reserves as a test of their ability to perform in this and future post-Cold War emergencies.

“So far the call-up has been limited to support units,” Aspin said at a press conference. “We want to see how good the combat units are. There’s a debate in the defense establishment about how much you can reasonably rely on reserves to do the fighting. This is an opportunity to find out how well the . . . reserve combat units can perform, and I think we ought to take advantage of it.”

Aspin’s call was echoed by the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. William L. Dickinson of Alabama.

Aspin also predicted that the Middle East crisis would be resolved within six months in one of three ways: through a major conflict, the internal overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein or a diplomatic compromise.

But he added that some substantial peacekeeping force, including a large number of U.S. units, would remain in the region for an indefinite period.

Aspin said he does not expect a major boost for the 1991 Pentagon budget, which is now being considered by Congress, as a result of the gulf operation.

Times staff writer Nick B. Williams Jr. contributed to this story from Manama, Bahrain.