Bush Will Deliver ‘Persian Gulf Report Card’ on TV Tonight : Gulf crisis: His address to Congress will tell the nation ‘where we want to go and . . . why it’s going to work,’ the White House says.

President Bush on Monday prepared to deliver a televised status report to the nation on the Persian Gulf crisis while his Administration sought to build American patience for what could be a long, drawn-out military operation.

The President’s speech to Congress and a national television audience tonight is described by a White House official as an effort to “look at the big picture,” telling the nation “this is why we care” about Kuwait, “this is where we want to go and this is why it’s going to work.”

Caught between Arab allies generally favoring speedy military action against the Iraqi regime and others--including the Soviet Union--who are resisting a military solution, Bush finds himself at an important juncture in the crisis.

With no sign that the economic embargo of Iraq will bear fruit quickly--although reports from Iraq indicate that its bite is beginning to be felt--and with senior officials seeing no immediate end to the deployment, Bush is facing new pressure from Congress. Just back from a long August recess, members of the House and Senate have urged him to explain to the American people the motives for the massive troop deployment to the volatile Middle East.

So, a White House official said, Bush will offer the nation “a Persian Gulf report card.”

At the same time, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater reacted critically Monday to an offer by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to provide Third World nations with oil free of charge. The Iraqi leader described the offer as a gesture of solidarity--although it was unclear how the oil would be transported in view of the global embargo imposed on Baghdad.

Fitzwater described the ploy as “part of a desperate attempt on his part to search for support wherever he can get it.”

“Such maneuvers have not worked in the past and will not work this time,” he said in a written statement. “It is an affront to all countries for Saddam to think that they would sacrifice the principles of freedom and nonaggression for the Iraqi oil or the oil that he has taken through his naked aggression against Kuwait.”

Bush’s speech, coming two days after his one-day meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, offers the President an opportunity to highlight the impact that the budding U.S.-Soviet relationship is having on the Middle East and on what the Administration is calling the “new world order.”

Indeed, Bush said Sunday that the “remarkable cooperation” shown by the Soviet Union in the development of a united opposition to Hussein “gets me inclined to recommend as close cooperation in the economic field as possible.”

In discussions with Congress, the Administration has indicated that such cooperation could include assistance in setting up a private housing industry, a banking system and an efficient tax administration system, as well as developing management training courses and providing help for the Soviet Union’s clogged transportation and distribution system.

The White House also had hoped that Bush could present to the nation an agreement to cut the federal budget deficit. But Administration and congressional budget negotiators have been unable--despite an intensive weekend effort--to reach agreement on how to cut the deficit by $50 billion in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The budget, therefore, is likely to take a back seat in the address.

In an effort Monday to boost dissemination of the Administration’s message about the Middle East, Bush sought congressional approval to spend $14 million to expand Voice of America broadcasts to the Middle East and Persian Gulf from 7 1/2 hours to 24 hours a day.

On another front, the United States sought Monday night to persuade other members of a special U.N. Security Council committee that shortages in Iraq have not yet reached a point that should trigger humanitarian aid--an argument that reflects growing concern about back-channel food shipments to Iraq.

But sources said that the 15-member panel remained divided, with some Third World nations insisting on the right to make their own decisions about whether to send food. It appeared likely that the meeting would be adjourned without further resolution of what has become the most contentious issue surrounding the sanctions imposed on Iraq.

The U.N. quarantine provides an exemption for medicine and for “humanitarian” shipments of food. But it does not make clear how humanitarian needs should be determined. And in recent days China, Iran, and other nations have signaled that they are preparing to send food aid.

The United States has urged that only the United Nations should authorize emergency food shipments.

A Red Cross official said Monday that representatives of the Geneva-based relief organization saw no evidence last week that people in Iraq or Kuwait were starving or being deprived of medicines.

“It is not at a critical stage,” said Ann Stingle, a spokesman for the American Red Cross in Washington.

In a related area of concern, U.S. officials said Monday that the Administration is on the verge of taking further steps aimed at tightening the embargo to block shipments that have continued to arrive in Iraq aboard aircraft from abroad.

The officials indicated that the question of appropriate countermeasures is “still under discussion” but said that a new U.S.-led effort to extend the embargo to the air could be expected within the next several days.

In Baltimore, meanwhile, 164 Americans, mostly women and children, arrived Monday night on a U.S. government-chartered flight from Baghdad by way of London.

At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, a huge hangar was transformed into a flag-draped emergency processing center filled with food and flowers. As the former hostages entered, an army of Red Cross workers, medical personnel and dignitaries stood by clapping. There were 90 children and infants on the flight. Authorities said that there were no serious medical problems.

Diane Al Bahar, 32, kissed the ground as she arrived at the center. “This is my home,” she said. Her husband, a Kuwaiti, remained in Kuwait city. She said that he told her he did not want their 7-year-old son to experience war and urged her to leave with the child.

Although several other women discussed the trauma and increasing food shortages in Kuwait, they asked that their names not be used because they feared for their husbands and other loved ones left behind.