No Concession on Kuwait, Bush Vows to Allies : Deadline: The President says Iraqi troops must be entirely out by Jan. 15.

Anticipating 11th-hour moves for compromise or delay from Iraq, President Bush met Monday with ambassadors of the 28 nations in the anti-Iraq coalition and insisted there must be “no concession, no negotiation” over territory in Kuwait.

Iraqi troops must be out of Kuwait--and “that means entirely,” Bush said--by Jan. 15, the deadline set by the U.N. Security Council. After that date, the U.N. resolution provides for the use of force against Iraq.

“I think at midnight if he’s not totally out of Kuwait, the U.N. sanctions must be fulfilled,” Bush said.

Government analysts believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will try a number of maneuvers just before then, possibly including a partial troop pullback, to stall a U.S. response or encourage international interest in a compromise.

At the heart of the Administration’s latest effort is the need for Bush to marshal effective responses to whatever steps Iraq may propose, or actually take, while he also holds together the international coalition that has formed behind his hard-line policy.

Thus, said one Administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity, analysts are studying possible scenarios Hussein might follow in his effort to undercut support for Bush’s approach, both international and within the United States. A partial withdrawal from Kuwait could be one such tactic.

Bush hammered away at his “no compromise” approach as he met with reporters, hosted the foreign ambassadors and conferred with W. Nathaniel Howell III, the just-returned U.S. ambassador to Kuwait.

“We’re not in a threatening mode. I don’t think any of us are,” he said in the Rose Garden, accompanied by the ambassadors of the gulf coalition. “We’re in a determined mode, a mode that he should get out without concession. . . . He’s got to understand it. So we’re going to keep on repeating it: No concession, no negotiation for one inch of territory.”

He added, “Mr. Saddam Hussein, you simply do what the world is calling upon you to do: Get out.”

Asked what it would take to persuade Hussein to yield to the allied force of 400,000 troops that is being assembled in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, Bush said: “I think at some point he will realize that this force . . . would be devastating.”

A White House official said Bush’s repeated message was a response to reports he has been receiving from Middle East leaders that Hussein is mistaking the political debate over the Persian Gulf policy in the United States for a lack of resolve in the White House.

“Some tell me . . . that Saddam Hussein simply does not understand the debate in this country,” Bush said. “He thinks it means that our country is divided and we cannot go forward to do our part in implementing the U.N. resolutions. And he’s just as wrong as he can be.”

Reflecting his effort to put the onus directly on Hussein for any failure in the coming weeks to achieve a non-military solution, Bush said: “Iraq’s behavior underscores what I think is its lack of interest in a peaceful settlement of this crisis.”

Howell said during a picture-taking session with Bush that the Iraqis were winterizing their bunkers near the now-abandoned U.S. Embassy in Kuwait city.

When a reporter suggested that did not “bode well” for the United States, Bush interjected: “It doesn’t bode well for Saddam Hussein.”

Administration officials reported, meanwhile, that there was no progress in setting dates for an exchange of visits in which Secretary of State James A. Baker III would visit Baghdad and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz would visit Washington.

Bush has insisted that Baker visit Baghdad by Jan. 3, and Iraq has said Hussein will only receive the secretary of state on Jan. 12. Bush has said that he envisions the meeting as an opportunity to impress on Hussein the importance of pulling all his troops out of Kuwait by the Jan. 15 deadline, rather than a chance to negotiate a compromise.

Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said during a hearing that the Administration faces the problem of convincing “the American people you’re going to war over a difference of nine days.”

“Talk is very cheap. War is costly. I feel as though I’m listening to an argument between 3-year-olds,” she said.

Testifying before the committee, Samuel L. Lewis, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Bush’s hand would be strengthened if Congress, acting before the Jan. 15 deadline, authorized the use of force.

But Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), the committee chairman, said: “That would be very tough to do. It goes back to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. No one wants to give the President a blank check.”

The Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed in 1964, was then used repeatedly by President Lyndon B. Johnson to claim congressional approval for the massive U.S. buildup in Vietnam in subsequent years.

Aspin said Congress should vote on the gulf crisis only if the President submits a specific proposal to go to war and outlines his goals.

Lewis said one consequence of a massive U.S. attack on Iraq might be “carnage” so great that it would create “revulsion” among the American people and deter future use of military force. But Aspin said disclosures about the Iraqis’ destruction of Kuwait might offset any adverse reaction by the American public.

Times staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this report.