Iran Continues to Insist It Will Hold Iraqi Jets

The White House said today it has received fresh assurances from Iran that Iraqi warplanes that have crossed the border will not be allowed to rejoin the Persian Gulf War. The Pentagon raised to 100 its estimate of the number of Iraqi jets involved.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the Iranians have given the United States assurances through third parties “within the last 24 hours” that the Iraqi planes will be grounded for the duration of the war. U.S. military officials have warned they will be shot down if the planes try to rejoin the war.

Fitzwater said the Iraqi planes crossed the border “surreptitiously without our blessing.” Citing Iraq’s long border with its former war enemy, he said, “It’s pretty hard to defend against that.”

“It’s better that they’re on the ground in mothballs in Iran than it is that they’re in the air attacking us,” Fitzwater said.

He also said that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s assertion that he is willing to use chemical, nuclear and biological weapons shows “the amoral nature of his efforts in this war.” Hussein “makes no bones about” coveting a nuclear weapons capability.

Referring to the Iraqi leader’s interview by a Cable News Network correspondent in Baghdad, Fitzwater said, “What clearly emerges from his speech is that he must be stopped.”

At the United Nations, Iranian Ambassador Kamal Kharrazi said his country had protested to Iraq over the warplanes’ arrival. He told U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar that the aircraft “would be seized and held until the termination of hostilities.”

The United States and its allies have experienced relatively few casualties during the air attacks on Iraq and Kuwait. But Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the second-ranking Republican in the House, said today that the violence of a ground war would be a “severe jolt” that would test the American people’s support for the conflict.

Appearing with Gingrich on ABC’s “Good Morning America” was House Democratic Whip William H. Gray of Pennsylvania, who said Congress wants the war to be “decisive. They want it to be over very quickly and our troops to come back as quickly as possible.”

Gingrich also said a quick end to a ground war was essential “because it’s not just the Congress but the American people’s capacity to accept violence on television at the levels we’d see in ground combat.”

President Bush, meanwhile, made final preparations for his State of the Union address tonight, the first such wartime address to Congress since the Vietnam War nearly two decades ago.

“The content is dominated by the discussion of the Persian Gulf conflict,” Fitzwater said.