Bush Says He’s ‘Had It’ With Cruelty by Iraq : Gulf crisis: Treatment of Americans draws angry response. He says diplomats in Kuwait are being starved.

An angry President Bush said Wednesday that he has “had it” with cruelty to Americans held in Iraq and charged that the diplomats in the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait “are being starved by a brutal dictator.”

“Do you think I’m concerned about it? You’re darn right I am. And what am I going to do about it? Let’s just wait and see. Because I have had it with that kind of treatment of Americans,” Bush declared.

Although he and other White House officials insist that they have not given up on a diplomatic solution, the President’s words reinforced the strong implication that he is ready to face a decision on taking action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“Of course I’m concerned. As each day goes by and these Americans are isolated, cut off from supplies, who wouldn’t be concerned?” Bush said, adding yet again a direct warning to Hussein: “He should think very carefully about what he’s doing there.”

Eight diplomats, led by Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell III, have been holed up at the embassy in Kuwait city and subsisting on dwindling supplies of food since Aug. 24, when Hussein ordered all embassies in Kuwait closed and their functions transferred to Baghdad.

The treatment of the diplomats has been one of the emotional points around which Bush’s public approach to the crisis has turned--along with the treatment of hostages held in Iraq and reports that Iraqi soldiers have brutalized Kuwaiti citizens in the occupied kingdom.

With each new report of mistreatment or deprivation of diplomats, hostages or Kuwaitis, Bush has angrily declared that he will not tolerate such behavior for long.

“I’m simply trying to have the American people understand how strongly I feel about the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s policy,” he told reporters Wednesday. “World opinion is saying: ‘He’s got to stop it.’ ”

Asked how he would know when he has “reached the end” of his patience, Bush said: “We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, we will send a steady, strong message to Saddam Hussein that we are not going to tolerate this aggression.”

He said that he has not yet concluded that U.N. sanctions intended to pressure Hussein into pulling out of Kuwait have been unsuccessful. “But they certainly haven’t driven the man to do what he should have done,” Bush said.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler, making public the government’s most comprehensive assessment of the impact of the U.N. trade embargo on Iraq, said there is growing evidence of “real shortages” in Iraq. She estimated that 97% of Iraq’s pre-crisis oil exports have been cut off, costing the government $1.5 billion a month at pre-invasion prices.

She also said that imports of industrial goods, raw materials, semi-finished goods and machinery have been cut by 90%, bringing “most of Iraq’s development projects to a virtual halt.”

“It is important to remember, however, that the aim of these sanctions is to change the behavior of the government of Iraq,” she said. “No one can say at this point how rapidly these shortages will translate into meaningful decision, particularly since Saddam Hussein has made clear that his army will be the last to be touched by shortages.”

She also said that the last four Americans held at the Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad have been taken away, probably Tuesday night. When a U.S. Embassy official visited the hotel Wednesday to check on the captives, he was told that they were gone.

“As usual, the Iraqis provided no explanation for the move and did not say where the Americans have been taken,” she said. “In the absence of any information from the Iraqis, we can only assume that these latest detainees have been taken to one of the strategic sites at which Western hostages are currently being held to be used as human shields” against attack.

Tutwiler also said that information about the condition of the hostages--details cited by Bush and other U.S. officials--was obtained primarily from released French and British hostages because the embassy has been denied access to the detainees.

The angry approach that Bush took in public Wednesday reflects the course he has pursued throughout the crisis--vowing from the start that the occupation of Kuwait “will not stand.” At the end of August, he said that “America will not be intimidated” and reiterated such remarks throughout the following weeks and months, from Maine to Hawaii, stating last Sunday in Honolulu: “Today in the Persian Gulf, what we are looking at is good and evil, right and wrong.”

The President’s remarks, varying only slightly over the course of the last 90 days, have been intended to put pressure on Hussein and then keep it there.

The insistent language--and the accompanying deployment of more than 210,000 GIs in the Persian Gulf--have become the stick in the “carrot-and-stick” approach followed by those opposed to the invasion, said Mary-Jane Deeb, an expert on Middle East politics at American University in Washington.

“Saddam Hussein has taken it very seriously. He’s almost expecting those words to be followed up by action,” she said. “This does not open up channels for communication or dialogue. It is perceived as an ultimatum, so the reaction is: ‘We will stick where we are and fight back.’ ”

But, she said, less adamant approaches followed by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and French President Francois Mitterrand, who have sent emissaries to Iraq, have worked to offer Hussein a carrot.

She suggested that Bush’s rhetoric and his move to send more troops are intended to work in concert with the carrots held out by the French and Soviets. Thus, the dual approach may yet produce a negotiated settlement, she said.

However, Bush indicated displeasure with the dispatch of special emissaries to Baghdad, saying: “Every time somebody sends an emissary, that gives Saddam Hussein a little bit of hope that there might be some way that he can stop short of doing what he must do--get out of Kuwait unconditionally, free these people that are being held against their will and have the legitimate government restored.”

Even as the President’s harsh language may increase the pressure on Hussein, it may also serve a second purpose: to prepare the American people for the prospect of war in the Persian Gulf if Hussein chooses not to heed Bush’s warnings.

At the United Nations, in a further effort to force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, U.S. diplomats worked on a new Security Council resolution to place Baghdad’s frozen assets in an escrow account as compensation for war damages.

On Aug. 2, President Bush ordered the freezing of all Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets in the United States, and other nations followed suit.

The Security Council on Monday established the initial framework for financial claims against Iraq, inviting nations to collect information regarding claims by individuals and corporations. The resolution does not provide for punitive damages.

Several nations, including India, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, have suffered major losses stemming from the August invasion.

Legal experts said the United States could claim as much as $2.24 billion from the pool of frozen Iraqi assets--mainly from unpaid grain sales.

International legal scholars said that while ample precedent exists for the seizure of foreign assets and payment to aggrieved parties, the proposed Security Council resolution takes the principle further.

“This is extending into the war crimes context a principle established in legal precedents,” said Richard N. Gardner, Columbia University professor of international relations. Gardner said, however, that individual nations might have to pass their own laws to fulfill the Security Council’s resolution, if it is passed.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster, in Washington, and John J. Goldman, at the United Nations, contributed to this story.

QUESTIONS ON RHETORIC--Bush denies he is trying to distract public. A12