U.S. Rebukes Jordan’s King for Hosting Arab Radicals : Diplomacy: The State Department is ‘appalled.’ The monarch is also mildly criticized for accepting Iraqi oil.

The Bush Administration delivered a stinging rebuke to King Hussein of Jordan on Tuesday for hosting a conference of anti-American Arab radicals in Amman, while criticizing him only mildly for meeting 40% of his kingdom’s petroleum needs with Iraqi oil.

“We are appalled by the statements that were made at that conference,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said in response to questions about a three-day meeting of Arab radicals and guerrillas. They warned of terrorist attacks “against the American interests everywhere” and called for the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“We were surprised and dismayed that this conference took place, and we have told the Jordanians so,” she said. In a veiled hint that the meeting could cause severe damage to four decades of friendly U.S.-Jordanian relations, she added: “We want to work with Jordan during and after this crisis in the gulf--hosting the conference is very hard for us to understand.”

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, congressional support for the Administration’s Persian Gulf policy showed signs of erosion. Members of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East accused the Administration of sending Iraqi President Saddam Hussein confused signals that could have persuaded him that the United States would not oppose an invasion of Kuwait.

Subcommittee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) bluntly told John H. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, that he may have inadvertently given Iraq a green light, recalling that he asked Kelly during a subcommittee hearing July 31 if the United States would come to Kuwait’s defense.

“Your response was, we have no defense treaty relationship with Kuwait,” Hamilton said. “That leaves the impression with me, did leave the impression with me, that if Kuwait was attacked we would not respond.”

“Obviously . . . the impression that was left with our chairman was the same impression that was left with Saddam Hussein,” added California Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo). “This obsequious treatment of him by a large variety of high-ranking officials encouraged him to take this action.”

When Hamilton asked if the current U.S. military buildup in Saudi Arabia extends the American defense umbrella to any other countries, Kelly said there are no written commitments.

But Kelly later said the Administration is prepared to defend against possible Iraqi aggression all states in the gulf region that are complying with the U.N. embargo against Baghdad. He said the commitment does not extend to aggression by any other state.

Some members of the House subcommittee suggested that Washington’s response to the crisis will damage the interests of Israel, long the closest American ally in the Middle East.

Lantos, a staunch backer of Israel, charged that an Administration proposal to sell as much as $22 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia will “simply erase” Israel’s qualitative technological “edge” in the region.

Rep. Lawrence J. (Larry) Smith (D-Fla.) accused the Administration of “snubbing” Israel because Secretary of State James A. Baker III did not visit Jerusalem during a trip to the region last week. Referring to Baker’s meetings in Syria, Smith said the United States is “jumping into bed with someone we wouldn’t have danced with” previously.

At the State Department, Tutwiler was remarkably sympathetic to Jordan’s continued use of Iraqi oil, presumably shipped by land across the long border between Jordan and Iraq.

She said Jordan is trying to abide by the United Nations trade embargo of Iraq but cannot do so completely because the Hashemite kingdom is economically dependent on its richer and more powerful neighbor. She also said that Jordan might tighten its compliance with the embargo if other nations replace some of the revenue it would lose by doing so.

Jordan now gets about 40% of its oil from Iraq, down from more than 90% before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Tutwiler said.

“Jordan has a very, very difficult situation here . . . and we are all working to alleviate their unique and specific (economic) pain . . . and to help them abide by these sanctions,” she added.

The Administration has been ambivalent in its approach to Jordan ever since the crisis began, criticizing King Hussein for his support of Iraq while avoiding an open break with one of Washington’s oldest friends in the Arab world.

Although Jordan represents one of the most serious leaks in the trade embargo, U.S. officials are reluctant to be too harsh in their criticism. Jordan-Iraq trade represents a relatively insignificant part of the overall Iraqi economy, although it is vitally important to Jordan. For instance, the 40% of Jordan’s oil that comes from Iraq amounts to about 27,000 barrels a day, only 1% of Iraq’s pre-crisis exports, the State Department said. It is not clear how Jordan is paying for the Iraqi oil that it receives.

The State Department said it has no evidence that Jordan is shipping any of the Iraqi oil elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Tutwiler said that two more U.S.-chartered airliners are scheduled to evacuate American citizens from Kuwait this week. One flight leaves today and the other Saturday.

Even before those flights, the numbers of Americans trapped in Kuwait and Iraq had shrunk to fewer than 1,500, or less than half the number who were there at the start of the crisis.

Tutwiler said that about 1,269 Americans are still in Kuwait and 170 in Iraq. About 82 Americans have been seized by the Iraqi government for use as “human shields” at potential military targets. Tutwiler stressed that the numbers, although quite specific, are only estimates.

“Our focus on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait remains evacuating American citizens as expeditiously as possible,” Tutwiler said.

At the United Nations, a Soviet official said the five permanent members of the Security Council have completed a draft document that would impose an air embargo against Iraq. The official said the draft is being dispatched to the five respective nations for review.

“The draft deals only with the cutoff of all commercial air traffic to Iraq and Kuwait,” the official said, noting that it excludes proposals to freeze Iraqi assets abroad and other actions reportedly discussed by the Soviet, U.S., British, French and Chinese ambassadors.

A Western diplomat close to the negotiations cautioned that the 10 other members of the Security Council are far from agreement on an expanded blockade to halt the shipment of goods by commercial aircraft.

Staff writer Don Shannon, at the United Nations, contributed to this report.