Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 8, 1991 TAG: 9103080824
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Meanwhile, Baghdad said it would free 40 foreign journalists and two more U.S. soldiers.
The U.S. military, for its part, announced plans today to repatriate more than 60,000 Iraqi POWs.
And the trickle of American troops arriving home swelled to a joyous flood.
In Savannah, Ga., one arriving American soldier bent to kiss the ground after a C-141 transport plane carrying 105 troops touched down early today at Hunter Army Airfield. A waiting crowd cheered wildly, and a huge banner read, "Welcome Home Heroes."
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm, said farewell today to some of his homeward-bound front-line troops. Speaking at a ceremony in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, he told the 1,700 members from the Army's VII Corps, "It's a great day to be a soldier."
A grimmer homecoming awaited the Iraqi POWs, whose repatriation is to begin Monday.
The uprising against Saddam was said to have spread to his capital, and the government said anyone involved is a "traitor" who will pay dearly.
The U.S. military command said today that an agreement reached by allied and Iraqi officials on Thursday calls for several hundred Iraqis per day to be sent home by bus and truck from holding camps in northern Saudi Arabia.
The president of Iran, which proclaimed neutrality in the war, today declared his sympathy for the attempts to overthrow Saddam. Hashemi Rafsanjani said Iran would cooperate with Iraq only if Saddam and his Arab Baath Socialist Party surrender "to the will of the people."
Rafsanjani lambasted Saddam for trying to put down the rebellion. "Saddam is making a mistake while suppressing the people," Rafsanjani said. "This is the worst mistake."
The Iranian leader was addressing worshipers gathered at Tehran University for prayers. His comments, carried by Tehran Radio, were monitored in Cyprus.
It was the first time an Iranian leader has openly backed the revolt in Iraq, which has been blamed primarily on Shiite Muslims.
Shiites make up 55 percent of Iraq's 17 million population. They have long historical ties with Iran's predominantly Shiite population of 55 million people, but Iranian officials have denied any involvement in the unrest.
Saddam and his main government aides are Sunni Muslims.
Baghdad Radio today quoted an unidentified government spokesman as saying it would turn over the 40 foreign reporters and the two American soldiers to Red Cross officials in Baghdad. It said they disappeared "during illegal presence in Basra."
Regarding the two soldiers, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Miguel Monteverde said he was aware of the Baghdad Radio broadcast but "they don't match any names that we've got. . . . Right now we don't know who they are."
The Baghdad government had refused to say it was holding any missing journalists, who were trying to cover the rebellion in southern Iraq.
Earlier today, two journalists - CBS technician Timothy Dickey and cameraman Chris Everson - surfaced near the Iraq-Kuwait border. Iraqi gunmen had stolen their four-wheel drive vehicle and equipment earlier in the week, and U.S. Army units came across them in the desert.
The Iraqis are also promising to release Kuwaitis abducted during the nearly seven-month Iraqi occupation of the emirate.
The first 1,000 of them - of an estimated 30,000 - were freed Thursday, and some were arriving home today in Kuwait City. They expressed fury at their former captors.
"It was like hell," said Hami Jamal, a 27-year-old computer engineer who was taken from his house by Iraqi troops three weeks ago. "We drank swamp water for days. And for what crimes? For being Kuwaitis."
The official Kuwait News Agency later put the number of released civilians at 1,881, quoting Kuwait's Human Rights Committee.
With the passing of the Persian Gulf War, Secretary of State James Baker turned his attention to another Middle East quarrel - the Arab-Israeli conflict.
En route to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he was to hold meetings today, Baker told reporters the United States is prepared to meet with Palestinian Arabs in Israel.
Barring a new outbreak of fighting in the gulf, U.S. troops will begin leaving at the rate of 5,000 a day, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Thursday.
Cheney, in an interview, called the situation in Iraq "somewhat volatile," but said at least for now, it appeared Saddam would be able to keep a grip on power.
Official Iraqi media, which at first ignored the unrest, made their first overt reference to it on Thursday in the form of threats against dissidents.
"Everybody who tries to undermine the security of the revolution is a traitor and a mercenary," said the Al-Thawra newspaper. "All of them shall regret it. They will pay."
The warnings came as a Shiite opposition leader said the rebellion had spread to Baghdad. The leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi, said rioting broke out Wednesday in Baghdad's al-Thawra and al-Shulla districts, where many poor Shiite Muslims live. The claim, made in a statement from Damascus, could not be independently verified.
In the south, refugees fleeing the fighting said Saddam's forces had executed scores of opponents in a single day, but said the government had not yet succeeded in crushing the opposition movement.
Hussein Ali Kazem, 22, a student and farmer who left the southeast city of Basra on Wednesday, said an anti-Saddam protest by about 1,000 people earlier in the day was followed by the public execution of about 400 opposition members.
"Their hands were tied, then they tied them to tanks and shot them," he said.
by CNB