U.S. Boards Iraqi Vessels in Gulf; Baghdad Protests

The U.S. Navy said Saturday that it boarded five vessels suspected of breaking U.N. sanctions on Iraq and handcuffed “uncooperative crewmen” aboard one, an Iraqi tanker.

The tanker boarding provoked angry charges of brutality from Baghdad, which said U.S. Marines, guns blazing, boarded two Iraqi vessels and beat up crew members while interrogating them on the nature of their cargo and the number of crew members on board.

A U.S. Navy spokesman said three tugs intercepted Wednesday as they sailed south from Iraq were carrying 23,000 tons of gasoline and were diverted to unidentified ports for investigation.

Two other vessels, including the Iraqi tanker, were boarded Thursday in the same area of the Persian Gulf, about 15 miles off Iraq’s coast, the spokesman said. Both were allowed to continue after the tanker was found to be carrying only water.

The U.N. Security Council imposed a trade embargo on Iraq in August, 1990, after President Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded neighboring Kuwait.

Iraq said Saturday that Americans shot at the Iraqi crewmen during Thursday’s boardings. The Americans forced the two ships to sail south for inspections, detained the crew for 21 hours and beat some crew members, said the official Iraqi News Agency, monitored in Nicosia.

The Navy spokesman denied that there was any gunfire.

When a helicopter team boarded the ship, one of the tanker’s 16-member crew “attacked by hand the first member of our team to board the tanker,” he said, stressing that the incident occurred in international waters.

He said a Marine hit the crew member with his rifle butt in the chest and placed flexible cuffs on him.

“No shots were fired . . . minimum force necessary was used,” said the spokesman, adding that the crewman was not injured and was later seen by a U.S. medical team.

Cuffs were placed on three other uncooperative crew members “to keep them in line,” he added.