Iraq Embargo Starting to Bite, Cheney Reports : Sanctions: But he says U.S. is prepared to keep troops in Saudi Arabia for years, if necessary.

The global economic embargo against Iraq has begun to erode the capabilities of President Saddam Hussein’s military and could threaten his domestic political position, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Monday.

Cheney, in London for meetings on the Persian Gulf crisis with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Defense Secretary Tom King, said the sanctions against Hussein “are beginning to tell on his economy and his ability to sustain his military machine.”

Cheney cautioned that the sanctions should be allowed to run their course before any offensive military action is contemplated. He said the United States is prepared to keep troops in the Arabian desert for years, if necessary, to enforce demands that Iraq withdraw from occupied Kuwait.

“The sanctions and the embargo are beginning to have an impact,” Cheney said, in the most optimistic assessment yet by a senior U.S. official of the effect of the sanctions.

“Over the next few months, (Hussein) will see the erosion of his political base within Iraq, the erosion of the economy within Iraq, an erosion of the capability of the enormous military machine that he’s deployed in Kuwait and against Saudi Arabia.”

When pressed to provide evidence that Hussein could face growing political opposition at home, however, Cheney acknowledged that he was speculating on a possible outcome of Iraq’s mounting economic and military problems.

Hussein has led Iraq virtually without opposition since taking power in 1979 by ruthlessly eliminating any resistance. He maintains one of the Third World’s largest and most effective internal security systems to suppress dissent and ensure the continued dominance of the Arab Baath Socialist Party.

There is no sign of any political opposition in Iraq, but the United States does have evidence that Iraq’s military force of 430,000 men in Kuwait and southern Iraq is suffering from shortages of supplies and growing morale problems.

Cheney said that situation could prove to be the flash point for war between Iraq and the American-led multinational force in Saudi Arabia.

In Iraq, Information Minister Latif Jasim told reporters he believes his country is in imminent danger of being attacked but will not fire the first shot. He insisted that “Kuwait is the 19th province of Iraq, and this fact will not be changed, even if we fight a long war.”

In another development, 15 Spanish nationals reached Jordan from Iraq, making Spain the first European Community country to see all its hostages safely out of Iraq. Seven Spanish diplomats remain in Baghdad on a voluntary basis.

Cheney, in an interview Monday with the British Broadcasting Corp., said the two periods of “greatest danger” in the gulf region were early in the deployment of allied troops, when they were too weak to challenge an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia, and over the next few months, “when the sanctions really begin to bite.”

As shortages mount in Iraq and Baghdad finds it increasingly difficult to supply its huge army, Cheney said, Hussein “might then choose to use his military (to try to break the sanctions) rather than see it degraded over a period of time.”

Should Iraq attack, “we would respond very forcefully,” Cheney said. But he would not elaborate on the form that the U.S. response would take.

Cheney will leave London today for Moscow, where he will meet with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov. It is only the second visit of a U.S. defense chief to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.

The talks will focus on the gulf, the evolving new security arrangements in Europe and on arms control initiatives, officials said.