DESERT STORM: DAY 16 : Political

Vice President Dan Quayle today refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons by the United States in the Gulf War. Quayle, on a two-day trip to Britain, also said he thinks Iraq will use chemical weapons against the U.S.-led allied troops.

Iraq today accused allied airmen of firing machine guns at civilians and said captured pilots should be treated as war criminals, not prisoners of war.

The State Department issued its annual human rights report, charging that “almost every category of human rights dealt with in this report is severely restricted or non-existent in Iraq.” It cited “extreme means of torture and summary execution of children as well as adults” to squelch dissent aimed at Saddam Hussein’s regime. The report also found problems in America’s closest ally in the region, Israel, and in anti-Iraq coalition partners Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

President Bush told a cheering, flag-waving crowd at a North Carolina Marine base that the sacrifices of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf “will end the nightmare of Iraq’s brutal occupation” of Kuwait.