Powerful Iraq Attack Urged if Talks Fail

Iraq took an aggressive stance Saturday in its standoff with the United States: A newspaper owned by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s son called for Arab commando assaults on U.S. and British embassies and warships, while the government again threatened to fire on a U-2 surveillance flight, expected to take place as soon as today.

The threats came as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on a round-the-world trip, announced that she will launch a major diplomatic push today, with a lightning swing through four Persian Gulf states most vulnerable to attack from Iraq.

In the aftermath of Iraq’s expulsion of six American weapons inspectors from the country and the United States’ order Friday sending a second aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf region, Washington and Baghdad jockeyed for diplomatic advantage while noisily making preparations for possible armed confrontation.

“If a U-2 plane is going to fly over us, we will be obliged to defend our security . . . which indicates we are going to shoot such planes,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf declared at a news conference in Baghdad. He said he expects the U-2 to try to photograph troop deployments and antiaircraft defenses in advance of the “American aggression.”

Earlier, Sahaf accused the Clinton administration of aiming to topple Hussein and replace him with a compliant pro-American Iraqi government. “They seek this and nothing else,” he said.

*

On Albright’s one-day Gulf tour, she will stop in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and then Kuwait, where Baghdad’s 1990 invasion resulted in the now-7-year-old confrontation between the United States and Iraq.

“Those are the front-line states that face the greatest risk from Saddam Hussein,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said. “At a time like this, it’s very important to consult with our friends in the Gulf.”

As Albright made her travel plans, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz--fresh from failing to win concessions for Iraq at the United Nations--also put together an itinerary to try to rally support within the Arab world for easing U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

He was scheduled to leave Paris today for an open-ended diplomatic tour expected to take in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and possibly a meeting with officials of the 22-member Arab League.

Although Sahaf denied at his news conference that Iraq has gone onto a “war footing” and said he would appreciate any Arab attempts to mediate the dispute, the Iraqi government has taken many emergency steps. Those moves include rationing gasoline, ordering troops to bases, asking for volunteers to join elite military units and sending thousands of civilian “human shields” to camp out at presidential palaces and other likely targets of any U.S. attacks.

“A bright new chapter in the great and eternal mother of battles” is coming, exhorted an Iraqi TV announcer. Sahaf’s tone was milder: “It’s not a preparation for war.”

*

But Saturday’s front-page editorial of Babel, a newspaper owned by Uday Hussein, urged Arabs to go on the offensive against the two main Western powers that are ranged against Hussein.

“American and British interests, embassies and naval ships . . . in the Arab region should be targets of military operations and fedayeen [commando] attacks by Arab political forces,” said the paper, which is not an official organ but often expresses the government’s viewpoint.

Albright, on a stop in Bern, Switzerland, blasted Iraq for the editorial.

“Saddam Hussein knows what he has to do . . . , and threatening us or anyone else is not the answer,” she told a news conference after talks with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. “It’s highly irresponsible of him to make those kinds of calls when what he ought to be doing is responding to the legitimate call of the international community as stated through a series of Security Council resolutions.”

In a strong indication of how the situation has changed since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Arafat called for “international resolve to be respected” in the crisis, which began when Baghdad refused to allow American weapons inspectors to carry out their work. Pressed on how he, as an Arab leader, reacted to the Babel appeal, he said he backs efforts to “solve peacefully this very important and dangerous situation.”

Arafat was among the few Arab leaders to stand behind Hussein during Operation Desert Storm, a move that backfired on him politically in the outside world and cost him millions in financial support from the rich Arab Gulf states. Although many Palestinians sympathize with their Iraqi brethren today, Arafat’s statement Saturday reflects a significant departure from his earlier position. At the same time, however, Arafat said the hardships of the Iraqi people should be solved after seven years of sanctions.

The Gulf showdown has absorbed an increasing amount of Albright’s schedule. For the second time in two days, she has changed her plans because of tensions with Iraq.

Albright will diverge from her scheduled itinerary after giving a speech in Doha, Qatar, at the annual Mideast economic conference. Albright’s 10-day trip, which is scheduled to take her to South Asia, may feature other detours as she intensifies diplomatic efforts to rally support for a tougher international stance against Hussein.

In a demonstration of U.S. resolve, President Clinton on Friday ordered the aircraft carrier George Washington and its battle group to the Persian Gulf to join the Nimitz and its armada already there. Britain has also ordered an aircraft carrier to the region.

*

Clinton spoke by telephone Saturday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the leaders agreed to try to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis with Iraq.

“The focus of the call was how to maintain the unity on the [U.N. Security] Council in seeking a diplomatic solution” to the problem, according to a senior official, who described the two leaders as “100% in agreement” with each other.

Clinton called Blair from Air Force One as the jetliner was arriving at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento at the start of a weekend visit to California.

Clinton and Blair agreed to conduct “a series of calls” to foreign leaders over the next several days in a bid to find a way to resume the U.N. program of dismantling Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the official said. He did not identify the leaders who would be called.

The United States and Britain are not on the verge of military action against Iraq, the official suggested. But he did not rule out the use of force if efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution fail.

“Everybody knows that . . . the use of military force is an extension of your diplomatic efforts,” he said. “But the focus right now is on finding a diplomatic way to end this, resume the inspections, get back to the way it was, which leads to an end of the production of weapons of mass destruction.”

After Clinton arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday night, he placed a 35-minute telephone call to French President Jacques Chirac from the Malibu home of entertainment executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, aides said.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the two leaders had “a wide-ranging discussion, but they both agreed that they were trying to work for diplomatic solutions” in Iraq, Lockhart said.

*

Daniszewski reported from Amman and Wright reported from Bern. Times staff writers Jonathan Peterson and Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report from California.