U.S. to Pull Envoys Out of Kuwait Once Other Americans Are Gone

The United States will withdraw its diplomats from the beleaguered U.S. Embassy in Kuwait once they finish helping all Americans who wish to leave the country, the State Department said today.

The embassy will remain open but unstaffed, spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said. The United States expects the Iraqis to safeguard the premises once the Americans leave, she said.

Despite Iraq’s order to shut down the embassy, the United States had insisted on leaving it staffed, partly as a symbolic gesture of defiance against the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Eight American diplomats have been virtual prisoners at the embassy in Kuwait City since the end of August. They have been subsisting on meager rations, with their water and electricity cut off, and prevented by Iraqi troops from leaving the compound.

President Bush expressed repeated anger at the treatment of the diplomats, saying it violated all international norms of diplomatic behavior. But Tutwiler said that once all Americans who wish to leave Kuwait are allowed to do so, the embassy “will have fulfilled its major remaining task.”