Iraq Expels Dozens of Diplomats : Gulf crisis: The ouster includes three Americans. Baghdad declares ‘march to victory’ and says it will never retreat from Kuwait.

Iraq ordered the expulsion of dozens of U.S., European and Arab diplomats, and Baghdad declared Friday that it was on a “march to victory” and would never retreat from Kuwait.

The United States, Spain and Egypt immediately retaliated in kind for Iraq’s expulsions, which included three American envoys.

Traders took heed of Iraq’s bellicose statements, and oil prices soared above $35 per barrel Friday on the futures market, posting an all-time high for that market, which began trading in 1983. Oil traded higher on the cash market--$40 a barrel--in 1980.

Europe criticized Iraq’s Saddam Hussein for inflaming tensions and weighed new ways to seal leaks in the embargo against Baghdad.

At the United Nations, diplomats were crafting a broad new Security Council resolution that would impose an air embargo against Iraq. No date was set for a vote.

As the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait entered its eighth week, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned that the situation in the Persian Gulf is “extremely dangerous.”

“We see no signs at this point that Saddam Hussein is opening himself up to any kind of diplomatic solution,” said Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.). “In fact, if anything has happened over the last few days and the last several hours, it is that he seems to be hardening his position.”

President Bush told reporters that he still hoped for a peaceful settlement but said support for the deployment of U.S. troops to the gulf remains strong.

“The United States stands united,” he said after meeting with congressional leaders.

The expulsion of three American diplomats from Iraq was announced by State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler, who also said three Iraqis, including the defense attache, were being sent home. Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed al-Mashat was summoned to the State Department and informed of the U.S. decision, she said.

The expulsions of the European diplomats--handed down by Baghdad on Thursday night but disclosed Friday by Western officials--came after the 12 European Community nations decided Monday to expel Iraqi military attaches. Some European countries had ordered additional expulsions as well.

Iraq said it was expelling military attaches from 11 of the 12 EC nations--Portugal does not have a military attache in Baghdad--along with a number of other embassy staffers. Iraq also restricted the movements of the remaining European envoys.

Friday was the Muslim Sabbath, and Baghdad made no official statement on the expulsions.

The total number of diplomats being sent home was not immediately clear, but Western officials said they believed each of the 11 European embassies involved was losing at least two or three staff members. France took the biggest hit--11 expulsions.

France was one of four nations whose diplomatic premises in occupied Kuwait were violated by Iraqi troops earlier this month. Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands also were the target of Iraqi incursions.

Iraq has ordered foreign missions in the occupied emirate to shut down, but about 15 embassies, including the United States’, are defying the demand.

Official Egyptian media reported that Iraq ordered the expulsion of several Egyptian diplomats, including the military attache. Cairo Radio and Egypt’s Middle East News Agency said Egypt retaliated by expelling several Iraqi diplomats, including the Iraqi military attache and an undisclosed number of his staff.

The Egyptian reports did not indicate that any Iraqi reason was given for the expulsions, but Cairo has sent troops to the gulf region as part of the multinational effort to stave off further Iraqi aggression.

Spain also announced the expulsions of several Iraqi diplomats.

European nations criticized the Iraqi moves. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called Baghdad’s expulsions unjustified. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Daniel Bernard said they represented a new escalation in the crisis.

The U.N. embargo on trade with Iraq was furiously attacked Friday by Iraq in an angry new statement denouncing the nations that have enforced it.

“They have reached in their meanness to a degree where they cut off from the great people its supply of food and medicine, and from the children their milk,” said the statement, read by an announcer on Iraqi television. “Oh, what dwarfs and small people they are.”

The five permanent Security Council members--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, China, France and the Soviet Union--all have agreed in principle on the need for an air embargo to tighten existing sanctions.

A draft resolution has been referred to their capitals, and the other members of the council are also discussing it. U.N. diplomats and officials said they expected a meeting of Security Council foreign ministers this week.

In Friday’s statement, Iraq also vowed to fight its way to a “final victory” rather than retreat from Kuwait.

“With deep faith, we think that there will be no wavering or change in our objective on our march toward victory,” it said. Iraqi television interrupted a comedy film to air the statement, which State Department spokeswoman Tutwiler called “pathetic.”

“Instead of predicting war, he should be pursuing a peaceful solution to the crisis,” she said.

Troops and equipment, meanwhile, continued to converge on the gulf region. Three of Britain’s sophisticated plastic-hulled minesweepers sailed into the gulf Friday, the first minesweepers to reach the waterway since the invasion.

Shipping executives in the gulf say Iraq may already have mined Kuwaiti waters, using new drum-sized mines mainly supplied by Chile.

Two more French transport ships embarked from the port of Toulon on Friday, continuing a sealift of French ground troops that began Thursday. French President Francois Mitterrand ordered 4,000 French ground troops sent to the gulf after the embassy raids in Kuwait.

Multinational efforts were also being directed toward helping the tens of thousands of refugees displaced by the gulf crisis. The U.S. Embassy said a U.S. military cargo plane arrived in Amman, Jordan, and was to be used to help evacuate Asian refugees over the weekend. The C-141 also brought tons of relief supplies, the embassy said.

Meanwhile, the American troops in the gulf were getting so much mail that officials were having trouble delivering it. Nearly 40 tons of mail destined for American forces in Saudi Arabia has piled up at London’s Heathrow Airport, U.S. military spokesmen said Friday.

British Airways, which contracted to help ship the mail, was “simply overwhelmed by the volume,” said Capt. Barry Napp.

One delivery from the gulf was getting high-level attention. The State Department said an Iraqi courier was on his way to Washington with a taped message from Hussein. The department said the courier’s visa would be expedited.

Iraq wants the tape shown on U.S. television. U.S. officials said they had repeatedly explained to Iraq’s ambassador that they cannot simply order television stations to broadcast the tape, which is said to be more than an hour long.

“No one could stay awake through that,” said Bush.