Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 18, 1991 TAG: 9102180072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
President Bush continued to duck questions about the timing of a ground war, but he said the gulf conflict could end "very, very soon."
A flurry of diplomatic activity, resembling in some respects the last days before war erupted on Jan. 17, coincided with intensified ground clashes along Saudi Arabia's northern border and the reported massing of 31 amphibious ships in one unspecified area of the Persian Gulf.
A Marine official in Washington said the 31 ships, which carry about 18,000 Marines and their combat equipment, represent the war's entire complement of amphibious assault vessels.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed and six were wounded by mistaken fire from U.S. helicopters as infantry patrols attacked Iraqi forces in seven separate early-morning engagements. The patrols were backed by artillery, armor and AH-64 Apache helicopters.
The casualties, which came when an Apache helicopter fired Hellfire anti-tank missiles at a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and an M-113 armored personnel carrier during a nighttime cross-border fight, brought to 10 the number of U.S. troops killed by "friendly fire" out of a total of 14 killed on the ground since the war began.
In one of the heaviest artillery bombardments of the war, the Army's 1st Infantry Division on Saturday fired more than 1,000 rockets and eight-inch howitzer shells into positions across the Saudi-Iraqi border, according to a pool report made available Sunday.
During a morning walk on the beach in Kennebunkport, Maine, the president, who was confronted by a war protester during church services, said he had been mourning for the Kuwaiti people since their country was invaded by Iraq Aug. 2. "And I hope we can get an end to that suffering very, very soon," he said. "I think we will."
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas asserted that coalition forces were "on the eve, or just before the eve, of the ground offensive," and said a specific date already had been selected. But French Defense Minister Pierre Joxe said hours after the Dumas interview that the allies had agreed only on a general time frame. ABC News, meanwhile, reported that Turkish President Turgut Ozal said he expected ground combat would begin this week.
As did Joxe, Marine Brig. Gen. Richard Neal, deputy chief of operations for the U.S. Central Command in Riyadh, denied that any specific date had been established. He said it is too soon to specify a trigger point because battlefield conditions remain in flux.
At the Pentagon, officials said the last U.S. ground forces arrived in their assembly areas Wednesday and are prepared for combat. Elements of the Army's 3rd Armored Division, part of the tank-heavy VII Corps that is expected to lead a major ground thrust, had been delayed by "one slow boat" carrying equipment from Germany, but all units are now "locked and cocked" for battle, an official said. In a possible small intimation of things to come, a photographer traveling with that division told colleagues the soldiers received a rare treat: they dined on steak Saturday night in their forward positions.
One official said discrepancies among public statements on a starting date may reflect semantic rather than substantive differences among allied spokesmen. The official, who asserted "there probably is a provisional date," said Bush may have delegated the launching of ground and amphibious operations to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the top allied commander in Saudi Arabia. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told reporters traveling with him last week that Bush might set a "window" of several days and give Schwarzkopf flexible authority to act within it.
Conflicting pressures within the alliance - to show openness to diplomacy on the one hand and determination not to compromise the U.N. objectives on the other - also were cited by officials to explain the contradictory public statements. Some analysts also noted the Pentagon's professed intention to use "tactical deception" to achieve maximum surprise against entrenched Iraqi forces.
Aziz, the Iraqi envoy, spent 90 minutes Sunday with his Iranian counterpart before departing for Moscow on a special Aeroflot flight. He traveled overland from Baghdad to Tehran to avoid flying through allied combat air patrols. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati made no public statement after meeting with Aziz.
Aziz told reporters in Tehran that his government had "taken our step and now is the turn of the other side to show its good will." He was scheduled to meet with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev today.
Secretary of State James Baker, predicting that Gorbachev would brook no departure from U.N. resolutions calling for Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait, asserted that the United States would welcome a Soviet-brokered settlement of the war.
Sunday's early-morning clashes came as U.S. forces stretched along the Saudi-Kuwaiti and Saudi-Iraqi borders become more aggressive in night patrols, seeking out Iraqi positions across the frontier and assaulting targets with artillery and helicopters. At the same time, Neal said, Iraqi troops in Kuwait and southwestern Iraq have increased reconnaissance patrols.
Neal said the Apache helicopters destroyed three Iraqi tanks, three BTR-60 wheeled armored personnel carriers and a multiple rocket launcher in addition to blasting apart a bunker and ammunition dump on the Iraqi side of the front.
by CNB