‘Kuwait Will Endure,’ Bush Vows

President Bush today promised the exiled emir of Kuwait that the United States will not rest until Iraqi occupying forces are driven from his country and will keep all its options open as to how that might be achieved.

“Iraq will fail,” Bush said in farewell remarks to visiting Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, who visited the White House for the first time since Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion drove him into exile in Saudi Arabia.

“Kuwait, free Kuwait, will endure,” Bush said. “ . . . His Highness and I agree that we must keep all our options open to ensure that Iraq’s unlawful occupation of Kuwait is ended and Kuwait’s legitimate government is restored.”

Concluding an Oval Office talk and a luncheon, Bush told the emir the United States will not weaken in its resolve to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to pull his troops out of Kuwait and allow its royal rulers to return. The United States has sent about 150,000 troops plus ships and planes to the Persian Gulf region.

“I look forward to the day I can visit you and the Kuwaiti people in your rightful home, Kuwait,” Bush said.

Bush said he wanted to “single out the valiant efforts of the Kuwaiti resistance,” whose members are fighting for their country’s freedom.

“Many have already paid the ultimate price,” Bush said.

In the Mideast, thousands of Iranians heeded a call by Iran’s ruling clergy today and demonstrated in Tehran against the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf.

Tehran Radio said the crowds assembled at five points in the Iranian capital and marched toward the Tehran University prayer grounds chanting anti-U.S. slogans.

The demonstrations were called by the Committee to Coordinate Islamic Propaganda, a group controlled by Iran’s ruling clergy. For the past four days Tehran radio broadcast statements from the committee asking people to turn out for the march.

Iran has condemned the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and has called on Hussein to pull his troops out of Kuwaiti territory, but has been more vocal in its criticism of the U.S. forces in the region.

In another development, Spain and South Korea said today they joined other nations in pulling envoys from embassies besieged by Iraqi troops. For the past five weeks, Iraqi soldiers have been trying to starve diplomats out of their compounds in Kuwait city. At last word, the U.S. ambassador and envoys in more than a dozen other embassies were still resisting the siege.

In Madrid today, a Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country’s last diplomat in Kuwait fled to Baghdad.