Bush Firm as Hussein Assails ‘Preconditions’

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein insisted Thursday that negotiations with the United States and Saudi Arabia are the only way to resolve the Persian Gulf crisis, but President Bush said he will not back down just “so you, sir, can have some face.”

Speaking in separate television interviews, Bush blamed Iraq for the recent slowdown in the U.S. economy, and Hussein said the Persian Gulf crisis could end if the United States would stop insisting on “preconditions for capitulation.”

Bush, who leaves Washington tonight on a seven-day trip to Europe, Saudi Arabia and Egypt that includes a Thanksgiving Day visit with U.S. troops in the gulf area, said that fears of war notwithstanding, the world cannot endure an indefinite stalemate in the region.

His remarks came only a day after he assured congressional leaders that war with Iraq is not imminent and that he will give economic sanctions more time to pressure Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait.

At the same time, Bush expressed confidence that, if war breaks out, “I think the American people will support their President. I think they know I’m prudent.”

Speaking in a half-hour interview with Cable News Network in the White House Map Room, Bush said he is to blame, to some extent, if the nation is uncertain about why he has decided to send more than 400,000 troops to Saudi Arabia and nearby waters.

“We’re dealing with naked aggression, we’re dealing with brutality unprecedented in recent times, and we’re dealing with a threat to the national security of this country and other countries,” he said, acknowledging that the television interview gave him an opportunity to once again state his objectives.

Attributing a share of the nation’s current economic problems to war jitters, Bush said: “Look what’s happening in our own country right now. There’s a slowdown, an economic slowdown. And it’s a disproportionate increase in the price of oil that stems from what Saddam Hussein has done. . . . It does mean jobs.”

But, he suggested, the situation is worse in the Third World, where “the have-nots . . . are being driven to their knees by these (oil) prices.”

“The Iraq situation, with this speculative effect on the price of oil, has complicated and worsened our own economy and the economies of our neighbors and the economies of the rest of the world,” he said.

The President held out little room for compromise with Hussein. Responding to suggestions that a deal could be worked out by providing Iraq with access to the Persian Gulf over land that lies within Kuwait, Bush said:

“When you rape, pillage and plunder a neighbor, should you then ask the world: ‘Hey, give me a little face, give me a little face-saving, so I can do what I should have done months ago?’ Should we be saying to him: ‘We’re going to reward your aggression by peeling off some part of somebody else’s country?’ ”

Referring to the foreigners held captive in Iraq, some as “human shields” against attacks on potential military targets, and to the Iraqi siege of foreign embassies in Kuwait city, the President continued:

“Should we say the brutality to these hostages and the way you’ve treated these embassies should be rewarded in some way, so you, sir, can have some face?

“The answer is no, there isn’t going to be a compromise with this kind of naked aggression.”

Bush also said that once the crisis ends, there must be “some international guarantees” regarding future limits on Iraq.

Referring to Hussein’s chemical weapons and his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, he said: “I don’t think the rest of the world would say this is good enough, just what they call the status quo ante, going back to where things were before the invasion” of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

“You’d have to have some international safeguards,” he said.

The President has come under increasing pressure in recent days from Congress to provide a clearer explanation of his intentions in the gulf.

On Thursday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) called Bush “an inept communicator” and said he should better explain his reasons for the massive military deployment.

Bush “has failed to convey to the public why we are in Saudi Arabia,” Aspin said.

But Aspin, a supporter of the President’s gulf policy, added: “In defense of George Bush, this is not a simple thing to state. It’s not a bumper-sticker kind of rationale. It’s not ‘making the world safe for democracy,’ like it was in World War I.”

In the televised interview, Bush expressed irritation with his congressional critics, saying, “You can’t have 435 commanders in chief.

“I’ve read the Constitution. They have the right to declare war, and I have the right, as commander in chief, to fulfill my responsibilities,” he said. “Individual congressmen may look at this differently than I do, and some are willing to tell me what not to do, but (they are) a little bit fuzzy and unclear on what to do.”

Although he refused to be pinned down on how long he would wait for the economic sanctions put in place by the U.N. Security Council to force Iraq to withdraw, he made clear that there are limits--not only to his patience but to the patience of the public.

“Holding public opinion forever in any country is very difficult to do,” he said. “In any country, I think there is a ticking of the clock. . . . I don’t think this matter is going to go on forever. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not.”

Bush challenged assertions that there may be a parallel between the escalating involvement in the gulf and the Vietnam War, which began in the late 1950s with the deployment of small numbers of troops and grew over the following decade to a deployment of 530,000 American troops at one point.

“There’s not going to be any long, drawn-out agony of Vietnam,” he said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC News, Hussein insisted that there can be peace in the region only if an agreement is reached that is “comprehensive, complete and final.”

Asked if Iraq’s current position is negotiable, Hussein declared: “When I say something, I mean it.”

Just as Bush appeared to be holding firm in his insistence that there be no reward for Iraqi aggression, Hussein seemed to be seeking to open a split in the coalition against him by suggesting a readiness to bargain, as he has in the past.

But he strongly rejected a pledge to withdraw from Kuwait as a precondition for peace talks. Bush’s call for a withdrawal, he said, is “not dialogue.”

“These are preconditions for capitulation,” Hussein said. “On what basis is there to be dialogue. . . ? Will he (Bush) continue imposing this boycott, this blockade, on us?”

The two presidents addressed the gulf situation as American and Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia began their most comprehensive joint exercise yet, involving more than 2,200 Marines, hundreds of Army commandos and as many as 1,100 combat aircraft.

The large-scale maneuver, dubbed “Imminent Thunder,” is intended to refine and test communications and cooperative procedures between the massive U.S. forces and their Saudi hosts, the Pentagon said.

Pentagon officials and independent military analysts have voiced concerns that if the allies decide to go to war against Iraqi troops, confusion over command relationships and complex lines of communication would hamper the effectiveness of the U.S.-led forces.

The exercise includes a mock Marine landing 25 miles south of Saudi Arabia’s border with Kuwait--a move some lawmakers criticized as provocative.

Times staff writers Melissa Healy and Karen Tumulty contributed to this report.