Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 16, 1991                   TAG: 9102160188
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BUSH: WAR WILL CONTINUE

As the U.S.-led bombardment of Iraqi troops continued without pause, Bush also suggested the conflict could end more quickly if Iraqis "take matters into their own hands" and overthrow Saddam.

Although he was quick to condemn the new offer as "a cruel hoax" in speeches here and at a Patriot missile plant near Boston, Bush said it did show Baghdad was "recognizing for the first time that Iraq must leave Kuwait."

But he left little doubt he found the Iraqi statement inadequate. "There is nothing new here," Bush said in a White House speech to a group of scientists.

Later, he told cheering workers at the Raytheon Patriot missile plant in Andover, Mass., "I am going to stay with it, we are going to prevail, and our soldiers are going to come home with their heads high."

"Iraq must withdraw without condition. There must be full implementation of all the Security Council resolutions. And there will be no linkage with other problems," Bush said with two crossed Patriot missiles as a backdrop.

The Iraqi offer came on the day Arlington National Cemetery received its first victim from the Persian Gulf War. The cremated remains of Capt. Jonathan R. Edwards, a 36-year-old Marine pilot killed in a helicopter crash, were buried.

In his White House remarks, Bush said the new proposal included "unacceptable old conditions," including a demand that Israel withdraw from occupied territory. In addition, he said, "Saddam Hussein has added several new conditions."

He did not elaborate, but presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said two of the new conditions were an attempt "to dictate the new leadership in Kuwait" and a call for allies to finance the rebuilding of Iraq after allied bomb damage.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, several officials said Bush's $56 billion proposal for paying war costs, expected to go to Congress early next week, will probably include money for 100 to 500 additional Patriot missiles and about 400 Tomahawk missiles.

The Operation Desert Storm air arm mounted more than 2,600 sorties against Iraqi targets Friday, including 900 against dug-in Iraqi positions and other sites in the Kuwait Theater of Operations - Kuwait and southern Iraq.

The air strikes hit bridges, roads, armor, artillery positions and airfields, among other targets, command spokesman Brig. Gen. Richard Neal reported.

He said one U.S. plane was lost - a Navy A-6E Intruder that crashed on landing aboard the carrier USS America, newly arrived in the Persian Gulf. The two crewmen suffered minor injuries. In one "air-to-air" success, an American F-15 blasted a hovering Iraqi helicopter out of the sky with a laser-guided bomb, Neal said.