U.S. Launches Missile Attack on Iraq Targets

After a day of intensive diplomacy and last-minute crisis meetings, the United States launched cruise missiles at “selected air defense targets” in Iraq, the Pentagon said today.

The action came hours after administration sources said that President Clinton had approved a directive authorizing military and economic retribution against Iraq for its invasion of Kurdistan.

A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation included Air Force and Navy forces but offered no other details. The president was expected to address the nation early this morning.

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

Earlier, the White House angrily dismissed Iraqi, Turkish and U.N. reports that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had withdrawn his forces from Irbil, which serves as the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.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.

On Monday, the sources said the United States would probably act unilaterally, because U.S. diplomats had 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 its bases. While Britain was expected to support any American moves against Baghdad, as of Monday the French remained uncommitted, and U.S. officials were wrangling with the Russians for support.

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

The State Department urged all Americans in Iraq to leave the country. Most U.S. citizens based there work with relief groups in the Kurdish area in the north.

The U.S. response was aimed, in part, at curtailing Iraqi troops’ massive human rights violations against the Kurds, which U.S. sources confirmed. “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 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 above which the United States and its allies had enforced a “no-fly” zone for the Kurds, who were facing Iraqi harassment after the Gulf War.

“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, was still consolidating gains in and around Irbil, an administration source added later. The only movement was by some Iraqi forces that had 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 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 [is] 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.

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.

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U.S. Forces in the Region

The U.S. presence in Persian Gulf includes air bases and ships.

Incirlik AB, Turkey

Carrier Enterprise

Azrak AB, Jordan

Al Kharj AB, Saudi Arabia

Dhahran AB, Saudi Arabia

Carrier Carl Vinson

Ahmed Al Jaber AB, Kuwait

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Cruise Missile Ships in Persian Gulf

CRUISERS

* Jefferson City

DESTROYERS

* Laboon

* Hewitt

* Russell

SUBMARINES

* Arkansas

* Shiloh