Britain to Bolster Its Gulf Forces, Thatcher Says

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Thursday that Britain plans to step up its military deployment in the Persian Gulf, declaring that the resolutions already adopted by the U.N. Security Council are sufficient to allow the use of military force against Iraq.

“To use no military force without the further authority of the Security Council would be to deprive ourselves of a right in international law,” Thatcher told an emergency session of Parliament.

“It would hand an advantage to Saddam Hussein and could put our own forces in greater peril. For these reasons, I am not prepared to limit our freedom of action,” she said.

Thatcher’s remarks were jeered by the opposition, although all of Britain’s political parties are united in supporting sanctions and backing participation in the U.S.-led military buildup in the Persian Gulf region.

The governing Conservative Party and the opposition Labor Party are divided over whether legal authority already exists to use force if sanctions fail to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

Labor leader Neil Kinnock argued that military action without new U.N. authority would enhance Iraq President Hussein’s stature among traditionally anti-Western Arab nations.

“The potential consequences of taking action that doesn’t have complete and unarguable U.N. authority include further turmoil, terrorism, an increase in nationalism and fundamentalism and the destabilizing, possibly, of strategic allies,” Kinnock said.

It was the first time that Parliament--not due to return from its summer break until Oct. 15--has been recalled for an emergency sitting since the outbreak of the British-Argentine war over the Falkland Islands in 1982.

Saying the U.S. military deployment in the gulf deserves strong support, Thatcher noted that Britain had already contributed three squadrons of warplanes and small numbers of ground forces to guard airfields.

“We believe some additional forces will be needed, and their composition is under consideration,” she said. She gave no further details.

Some U.S. Congress members argue that other European nations should also deploy large numbers of ground troops to underline joint involvement.

Thatcher says that sanctions should be given months to work, but she has insisted repeatedly that the military option cannot be ruled out.

“History has many examples of perfidy and deceit,” said Thatcher. “This ranks high among them and shows that nothing that Saddam Hussein says can be trusted. . . . Iraq’s actions go back to the laws of the jungle.”

She added: “The person who takes such (action) against one state will take it against another if he is not stopped and his invasion reversed. . . . We will persevere until he is.”