U.S. on Brink of Response as Iraqi Forces Advance

Two Iraqi mechanized divisions totaling about 20,000 troops moved deeper into Kurdistan on Monday, capturing two towns and closing in on a major population center, U.S. intelligence sources said.

The White House also angrily dismissed Iraqi, Turkish and U.N. reports that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had withdrawn his forces from Irbil, which serves as the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Instead, U.S. sources said, Iraqi troops were moving east toward the town of Sulaymaniyah.

Baghdad’s new goal, senior U.S. officials said, appeared to be to capture Sulaymaniyah, which is the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish group that controlled Irbil and other key areas until Iraqi troops invaded.

Iraqi Republican Guard units had already taken the towns of Salahuddin and Kou Senjak, while troops were also being mobilized outside Chamchamal and Kifri, U.S. intelligence reported.

The Iraqi moves came as it became increasingly clear that the United States was on the brink of a military response to Baghdad’s weekend invasion. On Monday night, administration sources said President Clinton had signed off on a directive authorizing military and economic retribution against Iraq.

The United States, the sources said, would probably act unilaterally, because U.S. diplomats have been unable to persuade either Jordan or Saudi Arabia--a key coalition partner in the 1991 Persian Gulf War--to assist in a strike against Iraq by allowing planes to use their bases. While Britain was expected to support any American moves against Baghdad, the French remained uncommitted, and U.S. officials were wrangling with the Russians for support.

And even as the diplomatic efforts were underway, there were broadcast reports of a U.S. force headed to the region.

“Action is imminent,” an administration source said. “Saddam crossed a line that was clearly set by the international community, and he will now have to pay.”

The U.S. response was aimed, in part, at curtailing Iraqi troops’ massive human rights violations against the Kurds, which U.S. sources confirmed Monday. “Much like the savagery in Kuwait, Iraqi forces are hunting down and executing personnel connected with opposition groups in the newly occupied territory,” a new U.S. intelligence assessment concluded.

In a further accusation, the PUK’s representative in Ankara, Shazad Saib, asserted Monday that Iraqi troops had carried out mass executions in Irbil.

Sporadic shelling has also created an exodus of refugees from all the newly captured areas, further straining resources in the Kurdistan enclave, U.S. intelligence reported at the end of a day filled with claims and counterclaims about Iraq’s troop movements in the region.

U.N. observers in Irbil said that Iraqi troops began leaving the city Sunday and that by Monday, all tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces were gone. The Iraqi government said Hussein had ordered the withdrawal of all troops after a Cabinet meeting Sunday. Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller reported Monday that the Iraqis were leaving Irbil, a city of 1 million. “I know that, as of today, Saddam’s forces have withdrawn and that this order has been given. We are pleased about this,” she said.

Safeen M. Dizayee, spokesman in Ankara for the PUK’s chief rival, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), said the Irbil operation ended with minimum losses and that no further military actions were anticipated. “We are restoring municipal services and have ordered civil servants to return to work,” Dizayee said.

The KDP asked for Iraqi help in capturing the city, which had been held by the PUK. Dizayee put the total dead and wounded in fighting Saturday among rival Kurdish groups and the Republican Guard at 100. He denied PUK reports of the execution of almost 100 Iraqi army defectors trapped in a camp outside Irbil by the Iraqi and KDP troops.

But on the campaign trail with Clinton, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry disputed Iraqi claims that the Republican Guard had been moved out of Irbil or below the 36th parallel. That is the line that the United States and its allies had enforced after the Gulf War as a “no-fly” zone for the Kurds, who were facing Iraqi harassment.

“There is some evidence of an Iraqi redeployment. But we see no indication that they are preparing withdrawal back to their original forward positions,” McCurry said. “It really is not terribly significant because they still have a significant force arrayed around Irbil.”

Most of the primary Iraqi force, which includes three divisions of the Republican Guard, is still consolidating gains in and around Irbil, an administration source added later. The only movement is by some Iraqi forces that have been shifted from the city center to allow Baghdad’s Kurdish ally, the KDP, to be more visible in the operation.

The limited movement was seen largely as a ploy, reminiscent of Iraq’s unfulfilled pledges to withdraw from Kuwait shortly after its 1990 invasion. As a result, Clinton--who was visited Sunday by National Security Advisor Anthony Lake in Little Rock, Ark.--now has a “defined course of action,” McCurry disclosed Monday without elaboration.

U.S. officials have indicated that any military strike may not be limited to areas around the invasion arena. “We want to send a strong signal that this as well as any other action Saddam Hussein might consider are totally unacceptable. The price he has to pay will be high,” a U.S. policymaker said.

On Monday, Republican leaders continued to criticize the president on the Iraqi situation, with GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole saying Clinton had failed to exercise the needed leadership on the issue.

Introducing Dole at a Salt Lake City stop, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Dole’s foreign policy advisor, said: “We expect military action by the president of the United States. We support the men and women who will be engaged in this action. We will pray for them. But we will also seek new, forceful, dynamic leadership in the tradition of President Reagan and President Bush which made this nation the No. 1 superpower and made the world safe for democracy.”

The PUK appealed Monday to the United States to launch punitive airstrikes to force a full Iraqi withdrawal from Irbil. “Saddam understands no language but force. Decisive air power is needed now to reverse the aggression,” PUK representative Barham Saleh said.

The latest fighting in northern Iraq is taking a heavy toll, according to Turkish journalists who tried to reach Irbil on Monday under KDP escort but were stopped short of the city at Salahuddin. Reporters said conditions in Irbil were tense and unsettled and that most of the region was without electricity.

Wright reported from Washington and Montalbano from Ankara. Times staff writers Edward Chen in De Pere, Wis., and Maria L. LaGanga in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.