GULF WATCH: Day 125 : A daily briefing paper on developments in the crisis

Diplomatic Front: Robert S. McNamara, defense secretary during the Vietnam War, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that sanctions against Iraq should be given up to 18 months to work.

But President Bush, speaking in Uruguay, said he doubts that Saddam Hussein has “gotten the message” that he must withdraw from Kuwait.

The State Department, meanwhile, said it is still awaiting Iraq’s formal acceptance of the U.S. invitation for talks between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Iraq’s foreign minister.

Military Front: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said that if war should erupt in the Middle East, it would probably come at the expense of the “peace dividend” that many had hoped to gain from the Cold War’s end. He said hostilities in the gulf would make impossible planned reductions in the Pentagon budget.

New Zealand will make a symbolic troop deployment to the gulf region by offering two transport planes and a military medical team.

Hostage Front: Iraq offered to release the 3,300 Soviets who are still in the country. The Soviets, most of them oil industry experts, will begin leaving today if Moscow agrees to pay compensation for broken contracts, the Iraqi News Agency said. U.S. Military Deaths in Operation Desert Shield:

Army: 6 Marines: 11 Air Force: 21 Navy: 12