Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991 TAG: 9103010462
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A unilateral cessation of hostilities proclaimed by Bush took hold at 8 a.m. Kuwait time Thursday with only sporadic shooting reported in Kuwait and southern Iraq. The Iraqi government also ordered its soldiers to stop shooting, but attributed the cease-fire to "our capabilities" and suggested Bush had been forced to bow to Iraqi success.
Nonetheless, Iraq said it would comply with all United Nations resolutions, a virtual acknowledgement of defeat.
The State Department said the coalition will ask the U.N. Security Council, probably today, for a resolution outlining the measures needed to put a formal end to the war. Diplomatic sources said the resolution is likely to call for immediate release of all coalition prisoners of war and Kuwaiti detainees, and to deal with the question of reparations for Kuwait.
Thousands of soldiers from Iraq's shattered army straggled home under heavy rains, trudging through allied checkpoints across a landscape littered with debris. Allied soldiers screened many of the Iraqis, looking for those thought to have been involved in committing atrocities during the Kuwait occupation.
Other thousands, many of them barefoot boys and malnourished older men, continued to surrender, while tens of thousands more prisoners huddled in the bad weather at holding areas while awaiting transportation to camps in Saudi Arabia.
U.S. commanders did not have an accurate estimate of the total number of Iraqi prisoners, but reports suggested that 80,000 or more could eventually be processed.
In Kuwait City, which had no water, electricity or regular telephone service, U.S. forces moved civil affairs troops into place to provide basic administration and services until the Kuwaiti government returns from exile in Saudi Arabia. Assistant Secretary of Defense Pete Williams said the Army Corps of Engineers had signed a $46 million contract to survey the capital's roads and infrastructure and "assess what needs to be done."
Bush, speaking briefly to reporters in the Oval Office, said, "We don't have a set time yet" or a place for the commanders' meeting, "but it will be very soon." A senior administration official said Iraq had communicated with the United States through the Soviet Union. Under cease-fire terms stipulated by Bush, the Iraqis were required by midnight tonight to designate representatives to meet with their allied counterparts.
Bush did not discuss the Iraqi response to all the cease-fire conditions, "but they have met this one condition, which is very good, and they have met it promptly," he said. A senior administration official said Iraq's rapid response on the cease-fire meeting had made Bush optimistic other issues could be settled quickly.
"We're going to get together and send high-level military representatives, and we're going to get back our POWs, and we're going to do it fast," Bush said.
He refused to speculate on the future of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying "we're not going into that" when asked about possible prosecution for war crimes.
Allied soldiers took up defensive positions throughout Kuwait and southern Iraq, consolidating their victory and overseeing the highways as thousands of weary Iraqi soldiers surrendered or walked home. Allied commanders reported only two violations of the cease-fire.
One involved a brief but violent skirmish that began when Iraqi forces opened fire on soldiers from the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps. The soldiers, trying to dig out the remains of U.S. airmen killed when a helicopter crashed during a rescue mission Wednesday afternoon, responded by destroying two Iraqi T-55 tanks and a battery of multiple rocket launchers, officers said.
by CNB