King Hussein Laments Iraq Devastation : Jordan: But the monarch says he could not condone or condemn the attacks on Israel.

Declaring he could not condemn or condone Iraqi missile attacks on Israel that have placed his nation under threat of war, King Hussein on Saturday urged the world to also consider the ongoing devastation inside Iraq, where “only God knows how many thousands have fallen dead or wounded.”

During a hastily called news conference, the king, whose nation is sandwiched between Iraq and Israel, repeated his vow to resist any air or ground force that violates Jordanian territory, but he said that his nation is not equipped to detect or destroy Iraq’s Scud missiles. The latter almost certainly penetrated Jordanian airspace en route to their Israeli targets.

King Hussein also attempted to soften the impact of a pro-Baghdad resolution adopted Friday by Jordan’s Parliament, declaring the United States to be “a Great Satan.” The king stressed that both Washington and Baghdad had stymied his months of peace-making efforts.

Asked if his recent plea for “a pause” in the war was a formal call for a cease-fire, the king said he has had no contact with Iraq since the war began three days ago. And he added that any formal initiative by him now would probably be as fruitless as his repeated efforts to broker a political solution to the crisis long before the bombs began to fall.

The king deflected a question about which side he supports in the war, casting his personal concern for Iraq in humanitarian terms.

“It is strange how this situation is dealt with as if it is one between one individual and a group of nations,” the king said. “We are talking about 17 to 18 million people.

“I am skeptical of the possibility . . . that only military targets are being hit. And I believe that the amount of high explosives that have landed on Iraq and Kuwait far exceed, in combination, the power of the nuclear device thrown at Hiroshima. And this (Iraq) is a country that has been denied medicine for the last five months, and food.”

King Hussein expressed deep concern about the possibility that Jordan might be caught in a cross-fire between two powerful forces.

“I am . . . deeply saddened to see . . . my worst fears coming true or beginning to do so,” he said, adding that an incursion into Jordanian airspace by either Israeli or Iraqi aircraft would force Jordan into the war.

“This is our territory and this is our responsibility, as well as the skies above it, and we regret very, very much indeed that conditions have deteriorated to the point that they have,” he said.

The king made it clear that Jordan never granted Iraq permission to fire its Scud missiles over Jordan, indicating that the high-flying weapons are simply out of his reach.

But, when asked directly to comment on the Iraqi missile attack on Tel Aviv, the monarch appeared to soften in Iraq’s favor.

“I can neither condemn nor condone it,” he said. “Iraq is under attack by a force that was originally prepared under different circumstances in our world to face up to the conditions that prevailed then--a great coalition, surface-to-surface missiles, thousands of sorties already by the most modern aircraft in the world--and some are proud of having been able to mobilize such a force against an Arab country considered by some belonging to the Third World.

“Unfortunately, in such a situation, I can only look . . . with regret that we could not avoid it.”