Kohl Assails Iraq, Pledges Israeli Aid : Germany: The chancellor, moving to shake off inaction by Bonn, condemns rise of anti-Americanism.

In an attempt to shake off a paralysis that has gripped the German government since the outbreak of the Gulf War, Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Wednesday strongly condemned Iraqi missile attacks on Israel, pledged $170 million in immediate humanitarian aid to the Jewish state and dispatched his foreign minister to Tel Aviv as a sign of solidarity.

Kohl said Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher will leave for Israel today, heading a delegation that includes Germany’s new economic cooperation and development minister, Carl-Dieter Spranger, along with a senior member of Kohl’s Christian Democrats and members of the opposition Social Democrats.

In Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy described the German action as “very, very positive.”

In addition, Kohl for the first time personally joined a widening condemnation of anti-American sentiments that have frequently been expressed at large peace rallies in Germany over the past week.

“I can well understand how people who are worried will go into the street and demonstrate for peace,” Kohl said. “But I have absolutely no understanding at all when they turn such actions against the United States.”

Further protests demanding a halt to the gulf conflict were staged in several German cities Wednesday, and peace activists hope to draw more than 150,000 to a rally in Bonn on Saturday--a figure that would make it one of the largest in the country since the peace movement tried to stop deployment of American medium-range nuclear missiles in 1983.

Kohl’s comments came at a hastily called news conference in the federal chancellery. His remarks were made against a backdrop of mounting domestic criticism and international grumbling about his government’s lackluster support for Germany’s many allies involved in the gulf conflict.

Government inaction, coupled with large peace demonstrations in many cities, provided an image of a Germany drifting away from some of its closest allies in the days after the war began.

At one point in his prepared remarks Wednesday, Kohl felt compelled to underscore the fact that Germany stands together in the crisis with the United States, Britain, France and Italy--all nations with forces fighting Iraq.

Bonn says its constitution bars it from sending troops outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization region, and Kohl dismissed any move to draft an amendment to meet the present crisis.

He said it would be “completely wrong” to embark on the amendment process under the pressure of the war.

Kohl indicated, however, that Germany will soon add to the $2.2 billion in financial and material assistance already pledged to the war effort.

“There is no question that we must contribute more materially to support developments in the gulf,” he said.

He said a decision on the exact amount will be made after he consulted with Finance Minister Theo Waigel, who returned Wednesday from the United States, where he had met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady.

The Kohl government on Wednesday also moved to strengthen measures to curtail illegal trade to Iraq.

Economics Minister Juergen Moellemann said that executives of German companies found violating the U.N. trade embargo against Iraq would be subject to jail terms of six months to 10 years and that the maximum penalty for breaking German export regulations will soon be increased from its present level of 10 years.

Revelations that German companies and technicians helped Iraq develop its chemical warfare capability have deeply embarrassed the government and further complicated its relations, both with Israel and the U.S.-led coalition of forces facing Iraq along the Saudi-Kuwait frontier.

The announcement of tougher measures against illegal trade came as new information surfaced that a German company built a $65-million underground bunker in Baghdad for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his family in 1981, the first full year of the Iran-Iraq War.

Georg Niedermeier, board member of the Walter-Thosti-Boswau construction company in the Bavarian city of Augsburg, told the Reuters news agency that the bunker “was very luxuriously furnished so the Iraqi leader can live comfortably there. It lies in Baghdad, next to the former royal palace.”

The German company acquired the concern that built the bunker, Baswau und Knauer AG, in 1983, Niedermeier told Reuters.

He said the bunker was so secret that the builders had to leave the blueprints behind.