U.N. Near Accord on Iraq Food Aid : Gulf crisis: The U.S.-sponsored plan would allow limited humanitarian assistance. It seeks to deal with Third World protests and forestall blockade leakage.

The U.N. Security Council neared approval Wednesday of a compromise plan to permit limited humanitarian shipments of food to Iraq, U.N. sources said, as the United States maneuvered to prevent a major breach of the embargo imposed a month ago.

The expected relaxation of the trade ban seeks to blunt mounting protests from Third World nations that the quarantine is too broad and potentially inhumane. The move came as a ship carrying food from India sought passage through the Persian Gulf.

U.S. officials expressed the hope that tight restrictions in the U.N. plan for humanitarian aid could keep the embargo from leaking so badly that it would greatly prolong the economic siege of Baghdad.

The plan, endorsed by the five permanent members of the Security Council and expected to be approved in a vote today, will require that any shipments to Iraq be authorized by a special U.N. committee and distributed by international relief workers, diplomats at the United Nations said.

With U.N. officials barred by Iraq from surveying food needs, it remains far from clear how the program will be carried out. But the hurried effort to resolve the contentious debate over food aid offers a likely preview of future fractures as a diverse coalition of nations seeks to maintain common cause in an economic war against Iraq.

Diplomats in New York said the decision to take the matter to the Security Council was made after it became clear that a separate sanctions committee--deadlocked when Cuba and Yemen insisted that food shipments begin immediately--could not reach a consensus on the sensitive issue.

A Western diplomat said a clear majority of the 15-member Security Council is united behind the U.S.-sponsored plan in an effort to “address the humanitarian problem without opening the door too wide.” But Cuban Ambassador Ricardo Alarcon voiced public dissent, declaring: “We don’t have to wait for a famine.”

Meanwhile, President Bush expressed sympathy for the “incredible hardships” faced by the citizens of Iraq but blamed them on the Iraqi government. In an eight-minute speech videotaped for broadcast on Iraqi television, Bush emphasized that the United States has “no quarrel with the Iraqi people,” a White House spokesman said.

And the State Department added new urgency to its plea for American women and children in Kuwait to leave the country as soon as possible as U.S. officials expressed concern that the current Iraqi-authorized evacuation may soon be forced to shut down.

From Baghdad, however, there was another concession, as five Americans who had been detained were released into the custody of U.S. diplomats. They were expected to join an airlift of 286 other U.S. citizens scheduled to arrive in the United States today. About one third of the Americans in Iraq and Kuwait have now been evacuated, the State Department said.

The dispute over food aid to Iraq represents the most important unresolved issue surrounding the sanctions imposed on Baghdad by the U.N. Security Council last month. An exception for “humanitarian” shipments of food was not further defined, leaving unresolved under what circumstances such aid might flow.

But as the United States hoped openly that food shortages might turn Iraq against President Saddam Hussein, other nations--particularly from the Third World--have expressed mounting discomfort at the prospect of using food as a weapon. Their unease has raised the threat of cracks in the worldwide embargo.

With U.S. officials concerned that any unauthorized leakage could quickly turn into an open flood, diplomats at the United Nations said the compromise reached Wednesday represented a bid to satisfy some of the discontent while retaining strict U.N. control over the embargo.

In particular, the diplomats said, the United States and other Western nations pledged that they would not object to the proposed massive Indian food shipment--despite a belief that there is not yet a need for such humanitarian assistance.

But the diplomats said the United States, backed by the Soviet Union, insisted that the shipment be authorized only after agreement was reached on terms making clear that the Security Council alone had the right to grant such approval.

“We wanted to avoid the kind of ad-hocery that could have blown the whole embargo apart,” one diplomat said.

The Indian ambassador to the U.N. said the proposed shipment of some 11,000 tons of food was intended to relieve the suffering of an estimated 140,000 Indians and thousands of other foreigners stranded in Iraq.

In a dramatic show of support for the effort, about 40 Third World nations signed a document at the United Nations urging that the ship, now waiting at an Indian port, be permitted to proceed at once to Iraq in recognition of the “exceptional circumstances” there.

At the same time, Iran and Turkey signaled a new willingness to open their borders to food shipments to neighboring Iraq, which has been forced to ration supplies of flour, sugar and other staples.

Neither proposal made clear how such food is to be distributed. But U.S. officials said the mounting support for food aid has forced the United States to abandon hopes for unanimity and to take the plan to the Security Council--despite the certain opposition of Cuba and Yemen.

“There is one thing that everyone agrees on,” one diplomat said, “and that is that the Security Council has to make sure that it cannot be blamed for pictures of starving babies.”

The speech videotaped by Bush on Wednesday morning, in which he spoke standing before his Oval Office desk, was made in response to an Iraqi offer to permit the President to address the people of Iraq over state-run television.

The White House said it will wait five days for Iraq to broadcast the tape before making it available for use elsewhere. The eight-minute tape was to be presented to the Iraqi ambassador by Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger this morning.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the speech was carefully written to throw back at Hussein a number of pledges he had made and broken. The official said that Bush also focused on the deprivations the Iraqi people suffered during the eight years of war that Hussein pursued against Iran.

But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that the speech is not a direct attack on Hussein and declared: “We expect that Iraq will honor its invitation to allow this to be addressed to the Iraqi people.”

In effect, the White House has more than one audience in mind. While it would like to have the tape reach the Iraqi people, it is also seen as a support-building mechanism if it were broadcast elsewhere in the Arab world.

The White House spokesman said Bush worked on the speech text himself and discussed it in at least two sessions with aides from the State Department and the National Security Council staff. He was also said to have consulted outside experts on the Arab world.

“The President took this message very seriously,” Fitzwater said.

The urgent new language in U.S.-sponsored radio broadcasts to Americans in Kuwait included an exhortation to women and children to contact the U.S. Embassy as soon as possible and a warning that the United States “cannot guarantee” how long the current airlift may continue.

Administration officials expressed concern that many of the estimated 1,200 Americans still in Kuwait may have been too slow to make arrangements to leave. With the U.S. Embassy running low on food and water, they said, it is unclear how long the evacuation can continue.

In reporting separately that two women and three children had been released from Iraqi custody in Baghdad on Wednesday, the State Department lowered to “about 80” its estimate of Americans held by Iraqi authorities.

Spokesman Richard Boucher also disclosed that a U.S. official had been permitted to meet for the first time with Miles Hoffman, the American shot and wounded by Iraqi forces in Kuwait last week while attempting to evade capture.

The spokesman said that Hoffman, who suffered a broken bone in his left forearm, is doing “as well as can be expected.” But he said Iraq has rebuffed American requests that the injured American be released and has moved him to an “undisclosed location.”

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