U.S. Sounds Out Allied Support for Iraq Strike

As the United States edges closer to military strikes against Iraq, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has launched an urgent round of consultations with European and Mideast allies that is likely to include one or more trips abroad, U.S. officials said Monday.

The Clinton administration is scrambling to rally support for using military force, possibly the strongest action against Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, to compel Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to finish the long-delayed destruction of his regime’s deadliest weapons.

“We’ll get a sense of what the mood is out there and a sense of where allies are,” a senior administration official said. “We’ll in turn tell them where we think we need to go.”

Albright began her consultations Monday, talking by phone with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. President Clinton discussed Iraq with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl during telephone talks that covered several topics.

The U.S. push comes as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin dispatched a top envoy to Baghdad in another attempt to solve the standoff diplomatically.

But unlike last fall, when there were deep divisions among U.N. Security Council members over how to respond to Iraq’s actions, the United States, Russia and other members of the council now agree that Baghdad is in grave defiance of United Nations resolutions.

The United States is now out of patience with the diplomatic to-and-fro that has let Hussein stall for seven years the destruction of weapons that should have taken a matter of months. American officials now seem intent on turning to military action even if some allies remain opposed. “It’s time to send him a strong and specific message,” said one frustrated U.S. official.

Russia, France and China are still uncomfortable with using force, especially since a U.S.-led punitive assault is almost certain to be far more extensive than the airstrikes and missile strikes employed since the war that amounted to brief, small-scale attacks.

“We notice that Washington displays a very serious toughness in its current approach toward the problem of Iraq,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Valery M. Nesterushkin said Monday.

“The decision of President Yeltsin to send a special envoy to Iraq means that Russia once again is trying to use diplomatic and political means to resolve the crisis,” he said.

In a separate statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday called for “mutually acceptable solutions,” wording that implies they must be satisfactory to Iraq as well. The declaration also said that “any forcible scenarios are inadmissible and counterproductive.”

Viktor Posuvalyuk, the deputy foreign minister and Russian envoy sent to Baghdad, is expected to try to persuade Iraq to let U.N. weapons inspectors resume their work unimpeded and allow them access to eight presidential sites, a central sticking point.

The U.N. suspects Iraq has hidden parts or stockpiles of its weapons of mass destruction, or documents that pertain to them, in compounds it has deemed sovereign and off limits by virtue of their status as “presidential palaces.”

French President Jacques Chirac said Monday that the disputed Iraqi sites are not presidential facilities. In Washington, that statement was viewed as “movement in the right direction,” the senior administration official said.

Although Albright’s travel plans were incomplete Monday, she may talk with her British, French and Russian counterparts in Europe later this week and perhaps consult in Mideast capitals on a second trip next week, U.S. officials said.

Planning for the trip began after a meeting of top Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and CIA officials. Afterward, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger traveled to Capitol Hill to brief Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on U.S. planning.

Baghdad showed no signs Monday of responding to the mounting international pressures.

Iraqi Information Minister Humam Abdul Ghafur countered that the U.N. inspectors had entered 2,300 different sites in Iraq since 1991, slowing work and preventing officials from doing their jobs.

“Iraq cannot be silent in the face of this destructive role, and its noble national leadership cannot accept these insults and treatment of its security and sovereignty as if it is an occupied country,” he was quoted as saying by the official Iraqi News Agency.

At the Security Council, the United States and Britain lobbied behind the scenes for a new resolution that declares Iraq in “material breach” of the terms of the 1991 cease-fire, which would implicitly clear the way for military action. Russia and China have in the past expressed opposition to such tough wording.

“We hope that any diplomatic efforts by members of the Security Council are aimed at reminding Iraq of the imperative of complying with U.N. resolutions,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Monday. “We’re determined that Saddam Hussein cannot be permitted to pursue with impunity programs of weapons of mass destruction.”

The United States and Britain now appear prepared to act even if they do not get a new resolution. With the arrival of Britain’s aircraft carrier Invincible, the United States and Britain now have three aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf region that include 350 aircraft and hundreds of cruise missiles.

But administration officials insist that there is no timetable nor any specific final military strategy. “It’s still a work in progress,” a senior U.S. official said.

Wright reported from Washington and Paddock from Moscow. Times staff writer Craig Turner at the United Nations contributed to this report.