CRISIS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : GULF WATCH: Day 98 : A Daily Briefing Paper On Developments In The Crisis

Hostage Front:

The White House urged members of Congress to reconsider any plans to visit Iraq to seek hostage releases and denounced foreign dignitaries who have already done so. The White House said such emissaries are being used as pawns in a cruel game.

In Iraq, the official news agency announced that 120 hostages, including 100 Germans and a few Americans, will be freed as a result of former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s meeting with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Military Front:

Secretary of State James A. Baker III told Turkish President Turgut Ozal that Washington soon may ask the Security Council for standby authority to use military force against Iraq.

In Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned Hussein that “time is running out.” She added that Hussein either “gets out of Kuwait soon, or we and our allies will remove him by force and he will go down to defeat with all the consequences.” Sanctions Front:

Marjatta Rasi, chairwoman of the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions committee, warned that “tons and tons of medicines” have been imported by Iraq in the last few months that could be used in chemical and biological warfare. U.S. Citizens in Iraq and Kuwait (estimated):

Before invasion: 3,500

Now in Iraq/Kuwait: 700+

Held as human shields: 105

Seriously ill: 63