Hostage’s Wife Given OK for Baghdad Trip : Family visit: The Nevada woman plans to fly there today. The State Department discourages such travel.

A Nevada woman, distraught over the stalemate in the Persian Gulf crisis, has obtained permission from the Iraqi government to fly to Baghdad today to visit her husband, who is being held as a hostage there.

The visit by Kim Edwards, 34, would be the first by an American family member during the crisis. It comes despite U.S. government concerns about direct family negotiations with Saddam Hussein’s government that might lead to further manipulation of the hostage issue.

“People say you’re playing into Saddam Hussein’s hands,” Edwards, a Carson City homemaker, said Friday. “But I’m going strictly as a humanitarian effort. I need my husband. Our children need him.”

Edwards said she showed up uninvited at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington last week, and a day later was granted an audience with Ambassador Mohammed Mashat. She said he issued her a visa on the spot.

The envoy also assured her of an unimpeded return trip. However, he was noncommittal about the prospects of Edwards’ husband gaining his freedom, she said.

Her husband, Tony Edwards, is a 52-year-old urban planner. They and their three children, ages 6, 4 and 2, moved to Baghdad in March, 1989. Earlier this year, Kim Edwards brought their children back to the United States for a long visit, in part because she was recovering from an illness. The Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait prevented them from reuniting.

She said she is taking with her letters from four other American women to their hostage husbands, adding that they and many others also would be interested in going if she has a satisfactory journey. Several of these woman also have been issued visas, sources said.

“We don’t encourage such trips,” a State Department official said when asked about Edwards’ trip. “We don’t try to stop them, either, because we don’t have a right to do that. We certainly inform people that we have a travel advisory in effect covering Iraq. We advise people that it is not safe to go to Iraq.”

Iraqi officials in recent weeks have met with a number of Western delegations in Baghdad and indicated they will consider releasing hostages whose nations are willing to discuss Iraq’s demands. Sessions between delegation representatives and a smiling, handshaking Hussein are generally filmed by Iraqi television and then released to the international media.

Those meeting with Hussein recently included former British Prime Minister Edward Heath and representatives of the New York-based Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Hussein also has said Iraq will release more than 300 French citizens who have been held since Aug. 2--a move widely seen as a blatant attempt to drive a wedge into the international alliance against Iraq. But France has said no deal was struck with Hussein to win their freedom.

In an interview, Edwards said: “I’m going because my husband is there and because I feel like now is a good time. A lot of people are attempting to do the same thing.”

Edwards said she has talked with her husband twice a week by telephone since the invasion. “He’s working for the government there. So he doesn’t need to go into hiding. He doesn’t feel fear. But he’s not allowed to leave. He says it’s like a big, open-air prison,” Edwards said.

She said she has been assisted in her travel arrangements by Coming Home, a private, nonprofit organization based in Champaign, Ill., that has been helping hostage families and other Persian Gulf refugees.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.