Bush to Speak on Iraqi TV; Kuwait Airlift Plan OKd : Gulf crisis: The President accepts Baghdad offer for broadcast, calling it a ‘real opportunity.’ Chartered planes would pick up the stranded Americans.

President Bush accepted an offer from Baghdad on Thursday to address the people of Iraq by television, saying the 10-to-15-minute speech will provide a “real opportunity” to explain why he has sent American soldiers to the Persian Gulf.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the address, to be videotaped in the next few days, will deliver a “very distinct message” to an Iraqi population bracing for potential conflict between its own army and a U.S. contingent that now numbers 100,000.

At the same time, the United States sought to plug a potential hole in the worldwide trade embargo against Iraq as China, Iran, India and other nations signaled their intent to ship food and medical supplies to Baghdad to ease the impact of the sanctions on civilians.

Sources said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations urged a special Security Council committee to explicitly prohibit such unilateral shipments despite an exemption in the U.N.-mandated embargo for humanitarian aid.

But that argument encountered sharp division within the 15-member panel as Cuba, Yemen and other countries argued that worsening conditions in Baghdad justified emergency food and medical aid, the sources said.

The developments came as the United States reached a separate accord with Iraq on Thursday to begin an airlift of Americans stranded in Kuwait and issued a vigorous protest in response to the now-confirmed shooting of a U.S. citizen by Iraqi troops in Kuwait.

Iraq said the wounded man, who was shot while trying to evade capture, will remain in custody after his release from a hospital in Kuwait. The State Department expressed its “outrage” at the action.

U.S. officials said they hope that the airlift, to begin this morning when a U.S.-chartered Iraqi Air- ways plane lands in Kuwait on a flight bound ultimately for Jordan, eventually would carry hundreds of stranded Americans out of harm’s way.

The agreements on the airlift and televised message appeared to signal some progress in low-level talks between U.S. and Iraqi officials that had previously produced scant results. With the President preparing to depart tonight for a meeting in Helsinki with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, they added to a flurry of diplomatic efforts to ease the crisis.

In a political speech here, however, Bush bluntly reiterated that the United States is prepared to do “whatever it takes” to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

But the threat of cracks in the embargo signaled what one U.S. official described as an indication that unresolved questions about humanitarian aid to Iraq are now “percolating up as a political issue.”

The official characterized the mounting support for food aid as a response to new Iraqi efforts to dramatize the plight of civilians who are beginning to feel the impact of the embargo.

The countries now openly discussing emergency aid to Iraq contend that food and medical shipments are permitted under the exemption for humanitarian aid set forth in the U.N. sanctions. But the United States, backed by Britain and France, argued in the committee meeting that only the U.N. itself is empowered to authorize such assistance.

A senior U.S. official reiterated that the United States regards the cutoff of food as an important weapon against Iraq, noting pointedly that “Saddam Hussein has said he will feed his army first.”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney issued an unambiguous reminder about American military might, asserting that the United States now has “over 100,000 military personnel” in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region.

The announcement was the first public disclosure by any Bush Administration official of the number of Americans sent to the Middle East since the U.S. buildup began a month ago. Defense Department sources said the United States expects to have 150,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen in place by the first week in October.

The White House decision to take up Iraq on its offer of television time came just a day after the Iraqi information minister proposed that a crew from the nation’s state-run station interview Bush to allow him to speak directly to the Iraqi people.

The U.S. response, however, involved a change of terms. Fitzwater told reporters aboard the new Air Force One that Bush had decided to videotape his remarks rather than submit to the proposed interview.

Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Mashat did not criticize the change, stating that the speech will be broadcast “in its entirety” on Iraqi TV.

The offer to permit Bush to speak directly to the people of Iraq left White House officials surprised and divided over how they should respond--while also tantalized by the opportunity it appeared to present.

A senior White House official said advisers to the President debated the appropriate U.S. response at length. He summarized the division in this way: “If you don’t do it, it would be seen as a sign of intransigence. If you do it, you could be giving credibility to Hussein’s operation.”

“It was seen as a clever idea by (Iraqi President Saddam) Hussein, as part of the propaganda war,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It puts us in an awkward situation.”

The Administration has been concerned about the frequent appearances on U.S. television of a dapper, mustachioed Iraqi spokesman who has delivered what U.S. officials regard as vituperative diatribes on behalf of Hussein that often are broadcast in their entirety in this country.

At the same time, Bush’s ability to deliver his message to the people of Iraq--who he has strongly suggested should rise up and overthrow their leader--has been limited to news reports broadcast by the Voice of America that have consistently been jammed in Iraq.

In explaining Bush’s decision to accept the Iraqi offer, Fitzwater said: “The President has a very distinct message he wants to give the people of Iraq about our purpose for being in the gulf.”

Asked whether the White House was concerned that Iraq would censor or distort Bush’s remarks, Fitzwater said: “We assume the offer means they will broadcast the message in its entirety, and certainly we will make it available to the rest of the world to see.”

Bush made no mention of the offer in his speeches here and in Tallahassee, Fla., but in the latter appearance he sounded a likely theme of his upcoming message, saying:

“Our argument is not with the people of Iraq. Rather, it is with Iraq’s dictator, who uses innocent hostages as shields.”

He added: “There can be no compromise when it comes to sovereignty for Kuwait--and the removal of all Iraqi forces. And that removal must be complete, immediate and unconditional.”

The airlift arrangements announced by the State Department represented the first agreement between the United States and Iraq to permit the evacuation of private U.S. citizens from occupied Kuwait.

Department spokesman Mark Dillen described the mission as a “flight of mercy, a flight intended to help Americans who have been held hostage against their will.”

U.S. officials said the accord had been struck between the government of Iraq and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They described the terms as tentative and said it remained unclear whether men would be permitted to accompany women and children allowed to leave by Baghdad.

Indeed, State Department officials cited new reports of Americans being rounded up in Kuwait and said the number of U.S. citizens in Iraqi custody had increased to more than 80. Some Americans were captured while seeking to join an Iraqi-authorized British convoy, they said.

New radio broadcasts over the Voice of America alerted U.S. citizens in Kuwait to expect an airlift and urged them to telephone the U.S. Embassy for details but included a blunt warning that they should not show up at the U.S. Embassy in person.

The State Department said the airlift plans called for a standard-sized Iraqi jetliner to pick up a load of U.S. citizens in Kuwait this morning, return to Baghdad so Iraqi officials can issue exit permits to the passengers at plane-side, and then fly on to Amman, Jordan.

A department spokesman said the United States planned “to continue this procedure as long as we have U.S. citizens who want to leave Iraq and Kuwait.” But he added: “We only know of one flight for sure, and that’s the one scheduled for tomorrow.”

In an additional indication of uncertainty about the arrangements, acting Secretary of State Robert H. Kimmitt told Iraqi Ambassador Mashat in a private meeting that the United States “expects full Iraqi assistance in facilitating” the exodus, U.S. officials said.

The presence of the acting secretary of state at the meeting with Mashat was intended also to convey official fury at what the State Department called Iraq’s “outrageous behavior” in the shooting of the American in Kuwait, the officials said. Spokesman Dillen reiterated at the State Department briefing that the United States “holds the Iraqi government responsible for the health and welfare of all American citizens held against their will in Kuwait and Iraq.”

He denounced as “extremely disturbing” the use of gunfire by Iraqi troops “in their efforts to round up foreigners” and said the United States will demand a “full accounting” of the incident from Iraqi authorities.

But he pointedly declined to comment on any U.S. retaliatory action, saying: “I’m just not going to speculate here on what consequences may follow any Iraqi action.”

Bush was scheduled to leave Washington tonight for an overnight flight to Helsinki, Finland, for a one-day meeting Sunday with Gorbachev. Aides have said the meeting will focus primarily on the Persian Gulf.

Fitzwater played down the prospect that Bush would link Soviet cooperation in the gulf to assurances of improved chances for U.S. economic aid for the Soviet Union, as reported Thursday by The Times.

“We’ll be talking to the Soviets about technical assistance,” Fitzwater said while denying any direct linkage. He noted, however, that Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher will lead a group of 15 U.S. corporate chief executives on a visit to the Soviet Union to discuss investment activities, and they will meet with Bush.

Gerstenzang reported from Topeka and Jehl from Washington. Staff writers Robert C. Toth in Hot Springs, Va., and Maura Reynolds in Washington also contributed to this report.