Angry French to Boost Gulf Force : Mideast crisis: Outraged by the raid on diplomats in Kuwait, Mitterrand also expels Iraqis and seeks broader sanctions. Hussein says he’ll free some French citizens.

France reacted strongly Saturday to Iraq’s raid Friday on its ambassador’s residence in Kuwait, ordering a military force of 4,000 troops as well as tanks, aircraft and ground-to-air missiles into Saudi Arabia.

In a tough statement issued at the Elysee Palace, President Francois Mitterrand also ordered the expulsion of Iraqi military attaches and intelligence agents from France. He said that 26 Iraqi military personnel studying in France would also be expelled. In addition, anyone attached to the Iraqi Embassy here will be confined in their travel within the Paris city limits.

Mitterrand said that France will ask the U.N. Security Council to expand the embargo on commerce with Iraq to include that conducted by air. So far, application of the sanctions has been limited to maritime traffic.

Early today in New York, the Security Council unanimously condemned Iraq’s raid on the French and other diplomatic premises in Kuwait and said it would urgently discuss further measures under the U.N. Charter’s enforcement proceedings, Reuters reported.

“We want Iraq to see that the international community means business,” said Canadian Ambassador L. Yves Fortier as the council gathered for closed consultations.

A draft resolution under consideration “strongly condemns aggressive acts perpetrated by Iraq against diplomatic premises and personnel in Kuwait as well as the abduction of foreign nationals who were present in those premises.” The resolution expresses outrage and demands the immediate release of all foreign nationals.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein apparently sought to cool French anger by announcing that he would let elderly and ailing French citizens now trapped in Iraq and occupied Kuwait leave beginning Monday.

The official Iraqi News Agency reported that Hussein’s gesture was in response to a plea from former Algerian President Ahmed ben Bella, who met with Hussein on Saturday. The news agency quoted Hussein as saying that he hoped his decision “would provide the fair-minded among the French people with the opportunity to reconsider their actions away from American and Zionist pressures.”

In another Saturday development, Iraqi authorities opened the main border crossing from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia, letting hundreds of refugees stream into the small Saudi border town of Khafji. The border at that point had been closed since shortly after Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait on Aug. 2.

Saturday’s major escalation of the French military commitment in the Persian Gulf came on the heels of a similar buildup announced Friday by Britain.

Taken together, the assignment of a total of 10,000 troops in the past two days by Western Europe’s two main military powers contributes significantly to the U.S.-led multinational forces in the region. Western analysts in Paris said it also effectively puts an end to doubts about France’s willingness to confront Iraq, its main ally in the Middle East for the past 20 years.

In Washington, the White House welcomed the French decision as “further evidence of the determined and unified international will to resist Iraq’s blatant aggression and violations of international law.”

Although President Mitterrand said he still favors the U.N.-mandated international trade embargo now in place as the best means to stop Iraqi aggression in the region, he said France is ready to fight if necessary. Speaking firmly, the 73-year-old French leader said he considered Friday’s raid by Iraqi troops and their detention of four French citizens, including the French military attache, a “test” of French resolve and an attempt to break Western solidarity in the conflict.

Iraqi troops also raided the Canadian and Belgian embassies in Kuwait city Friday, detaining five consular officers and six private Irish citizens. The diplomats, including the French military attache, were later set free, but the whereabouts of the three French and six Irish citizens were not known.

“It is Saddam Hussein who started this infernal escalation,” Mitterrand charged. “What he has done is not acceptable. France has chosen to answer back.”

Mitterrand said France’s military force in Saudi Arabia will be increased by three regiments of paratroopers, 48 combat helicopters, 30 offensive and defensive combat aircraft, a mechanized cavalry regiment of 48 tanks and five infantry companies armed with anti-tank and ground-to-air missiles.

In addition, the French military command placed an armored division of the famed Foreign Legion, trained throughout its history for desert fighting, on alert at its post in Orange in the south of France.

Before Saturday’s announcement, France had only six helicopters and approximately 100 men on the ground in Saudi Arabia, although its has the second-largest naval force in the gulf region after that of the United States. Because of their many past interventions in northern and western Africa, French troops are among the best trained for the type of desert conflict that might occur in the gulf.

Mitterrand said the French government seriously considered cutting all diplomatic relations with Iraq after the raid on the French ambassador’s residence in Kuwait but wanted to “keep something in reserve” to deal with French hostages still held in Iraq and Kuwait.

He pointedly said that the French government would take no restrictive action against the 1,400 private Iraqi citizens living in France. “We do not take hostages,” he said.

Iraq’s ambassador here, Abdul Razzak Hashimi, said the Baghdad government will respond to the French actions with reciprocal actions against French diplomats in Baghdad. Razzak asserted that the raid on the French ambassador’s residence had never taken place. “The French measures are totally unjustified,” he said.

Mitterrand said that, in addition to asking the U.N. Security Council to tighten its embargo on Iraq, it will provide the council with a list of countries and enterprises that the French know have violated that embargo.

In an uncharacteristically candid admission for a French chief of state, Mitterrand said that some of the private companies that have been “complacent” in observing the embargo include French firms.

“I have a short list of enterprises, including French companies, that have caused leaks in the embargo,” Mitterrand said. “We will do what we need to make sure each company pays dearly for its lapses.”

The French president appeared particularly enraged that the Iraqis had chosen the French Embassy compound to attack. He said he interpreted it has an attempt by the Iraqis to play on French good will after years of French military and economic support to Iraq. During the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, France was a key arms supplier to the Baghdad regime.

Mitterrand explained this support Saturday by noting that past aid and arms sales came at a time when Iran was at the height of its Islamic fundamentalism phase. He said France chose to support Iraq, even though the Hussein regime was the initial aggressor in that war.

“I find it surprising that the country (France) that helped save Iraq from defeat in its conflict with Iran would be today the object of an attack of this sort,” Mitterrand said, referring to the Friday raid.

Since French Arab policy was enunciated by Charles de Gaulle after the 1967 Six-Day War between Arabs and Israelis, this country has largely anchored that policy on Iraq, helping it nationalize its oil industry and supporting it faithfully during its war with Iran.

The special relationship between the two countries faded in recent years after Iraq fell behind on payments on $4.5 billion it owed French companies, most of them arms manufacturers.

When France joined most of the rest of the world in the U.N. embargo, Iraqis felt a sense of betrayal that was reflected in a recent television interview of Hussein by a French broadcaster.

“The only blame we have is against France,” the Iraqi leader said. “We don’t directly blame the United States or Great Britain because they were never objective. They were never our friends.”

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BACKGROUND The French Foreign Legion, which dates from 1831, has often been romanticized as a haven for adventurers, exiles and misfits serving under assumed names. Because the legion--which brought together men from 57 countries--keeps secret a volunteer’s past, it has attracted men of this type. But it is the spearhead and elite of the French army. Today, the man who wears the traditional white kepi cap is more likely to be a European professional soldier who prefers fighting with the legion to garrison duty with his own army. The legion was founded to help in the conquest of Algeria, and legionnaires are skilled desert fighters.