U.S. to Fly In Food, Other Aid to Kurds

The United States will begin airdrops of supplies to Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq and will dispatch Secretary of State James A. Baker III to the Middle East to discuss the plight of the refugees and prospects for Arab-Israeli peace talks, President Bush announced Friday.

The new aid, plus the high-profile trip, were rapidly put together at a series of meetings, culminating in a session early Friday morning at the White House attended by top national security deputies.

The effort comes after a week of steadily mounting criticism accusing Bush of passivity in the face of the huge refugee disaster that has followed the success of the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

The refugee crisis “demands immediate action on a massive scale,” Bush said in a statement announcing the airdrops, which, beginning Sunday, will deliver surplus military food, blankets, tents and other relief supplies to the thousands of refugees fleeing the Iraqi army.

“It’s heartbreaking when you see these families on the road, pushed out by a brutal dictator,” Bush told reporters at the beginning of a meeting with a group of Latino business leaders here. “We will do what we can to help there without being bogged down into a ground action in Iraq.”

In addition to the airdrops, the Administration announced donations of $10 million for refugee relief plus an additional $1 million to the Red Cross and the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund for food and immunizations inside Iraq.

A U.S. military medical unit will also be deployed to the Turkish-Iraqi border region “to meet emergency medical needs,” Bush said in his statement. Later, however, Bush insisted that he will not alter his decision against any U.S. military action to prevent the Iraqi attacks on Kurds.

“We’ve fulfilled our objectives” in the area, Bush said. “I have no intention of putting American troops into this situation.”

Administration officials said they have no commitment from Iraq to allow the airdrops to take place but urged Iraqi authorities “to permit this effort to be carried out without any interference.” The airdrops will be performed by military aircraft, likely under escort by Air Force fighters, which continue to fly patrols over Iraqi territory.

Baker’s trip will take him first to Turkey, where he is expected to visit the border area, and then to Israel, Egypt and perhaps other nations in the region. It will be his second trip to the region since the end of the Gulf War and comes on the heels of a visit to Saudi Arabia by Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

Bush has been hoping to be able to show enough progress toward Arab-Israeli peace to justify a trip of his own, and he told reporters here that he has “reason to be hopeful” about Baker’s mission. But he quickly added, “I don’t think we’re at the verge of having some deal.”

Baker will confer with Bush in Houston, the next stop in the President’s trip, sometime over the weekend, White House officials said.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Baker’s trip was “hastily” put together, with a final decision made only Thursday by Baker and the President.

“The purpose of this trip is to see if we can bring the parties closer together,” Tutwiler said. Bush and Baker, she said, see a second visit to the region as an important step to “take advantage of the window of opportunity that all believe exists.”

“You’ve observed this secretary of state for over two years now,” she told reporters. “I’m not aware of a single trip he’s taken just for going through the motions.”

At the same time, there has been no sign of movement by either Israel or the Arabs that would provide optimism about the prospects for peace. In fact, Israel has moved ahead with plans to expand Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank, a policy the Administration opposes. Tutwiler said Baker will repeat his opposition to the settlements when he meets with Israeli officials.

Baker is also expected to push efforts to cope with the massive new refugee crisis. According to State Department figures, at least 100,000 refugees fleeing Iraq’s Kurdish regions have already entered Turkey and 45,000 have crossed the border in northern Iran. U.N officials estimate that 10,000 Kurds are entering Iran each day.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council overwhelmingly condemned Iraq’s repression of the Kurds and appealed to all nations to contribute to humanitarian relief. And in Geneva, the U.N. Disaster Relief Office (UNDRO) made a public plea for $137 million to meet the immediate food and shelter needs of the Kurdish refugees. The group said it assumes it will need to help 400,000 refugees in Iran and Turkey.

Iran has allowed the refugees to cross the border, but the Turkish government has been reluctant to allow massive numbers of Kurds to enter its territory, in part for fear of arousing Kurdish separatist feelings within Turkey.

In addition, Pentagon officials estimate that up to 1,000 people a day continue to pour into U.S.-held territory in southern Iraq.

In addition to the U.S. aid, European nations and relief groups also began sending food, clothing and other materiel to help the Kurds, as private relief officials predicted it would be a tough task to reach large numbers of refugees in the area’s mountainous terrain.

A plane carrying 30 tons of blankets and tents left Britain on Friday en route to Ankara, Turkey, while the Germans said they would send four planes this weekend. The French also plan to send supplies.

The Swedes and British, who plan to continue to send planes, have jointly pledged $36.3 million.

The Administration has been hoping that international relief agencies can take responsibility for the refugees as U.S. troops withdraw from the region, and Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton is currently in Geneva, where Red Cross and U.N. humanitarian organizations have their headquarters, to discuss that issue.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and several U.N. groups have begun laying plans to provide emergency medical care and other materiel, but officials acknowledge that these efforts have only recently begun.

In an interview from Ankara, Lionel Rosenblatt, president of Refugees International, said there will not be enough time to send in food and supplies to meet the needs of the refugees. Rather, relief organizations will need to send money from abroad to buy goods in Turkey and Iran and deliver it in convoys of leased trucks.

Rosenblatt said Turkish officials have asserted that they have so far received only $4 million in international aid to help pay for the Kurds’ care.

Some legal problems may also stand in the way of the relief effort. Red Cross workers, for example, cannot legally cross the borders into Iraq to help Kurds unless they are invited by the Iraqi government. And the regime of Hussein has been slow to allow Red Cross workers to move about even to help the injured in Baghdad--and could be expected to be much more reluctant to allow humanitarian aid to its adversaries.

Lauter reported from Newport Beach and Richter from Washington.