Thatcher Plans to Send More Troops to Gulf

Britain will send more troops to the Persian Gulf to join the growing U.S. contingent there, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told an emergency session of Parliament today.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union said today that it has failed to persuade Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and now favors sending a U.N. military force to the Persian Gulf.

And Iraq today confirmed that an American in occupied Kuwait was hospitalized after being shot in the hand by an Iraqi soldier and breaking his hip in a fall as he tried to avoid capture.

Authorities in Kuwait said the unidentified American is expected to be discharged soon but will remain in Iraqi custody, the State Department said.

The State Department also said today that an airlift of U.S. citizens from Kuwait City is to begin Friday with a chartered Iraqi Airlines plane that will take Americans to Baghdad and then on to Amman.

Iraq, meanwhile, said it is reviving a law calling for prison terms up to life for any foreigner caught trying to leave without an exit permit.

The country’s justice minister was quoted by the official Iraqi News Agency as saying: “A foreigner violating the entry and exit procedures . . . will be sentenced to a life or temporary imprisonment and all cash in his possession will be confiscated.”

The minister, Akram Abdul-Kader, was also was quoted as saying that “any foreigner who fails to report within 48 hours a change of address will be imprisoned for a period no less than one year and not exceeding three years, and fined between 100 and 500 dinars”--about $300 to $1,500.

About 11,000 Westerners are still stranded in Iraq and Kuwait.

Thatcher gave no immediate details of the deployment, but aides say Britain has not ruled out sending more ground troops. Britain has sent ships, three squadrons of warplanes and small numbers of ground forces since Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

To jeers from opposition legislators, Thatcher insisted that military action against Iraq needs no further authority from the United Nations.

It is first time legislators have been recalled to the House of Commons since Britain went to war against Argentina in 1982.