Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 25, 1991 TAG: 9103250305
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf War told reporters Sunday that the base would not include American ground forces.
He also said the American troops who remain in the gulf will go home after a permanent cease-fire is signed with Iraq. However, a published report said today that U.S. armored forces had driven deeper into Iraq.
In another development, Iraq's government newspaper, Al-Jumouriya, on Sunday denounced the cease-fire terms set by the allies as aimed "at usurping Iraq's sovereignty, mortgaging its will and holding its wealth hostage."
The U.S.-led coalition, which halted hostilities last month after driving Iraq from Kuwait, says it will not sign a permanent cease-fire accord unless Baghdad destroys its chemical, biological and nuclear arsenals and agrees never to resume production of the weapons, among other conditions.
Prisoner releases, however, continued.
A Red Cross official in Riyadh said 1,000 Iraqi prisoners of war traveled to the Saudi border post of Arar on Sunday and were handed over to Iraqi officials. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Also Sunday, hundreds of Kuwaiti soldiers who spent months in Iraqi prisons returned home to their war-wrecked nation, where they were greeted by weeping relatives and celebratory bursts of machine-gun fire.
Since Kuwait was liberated on Feb. 27, some U.S. forces have begun helping the Kuwaitis rebuild their nation. Other American soldiers are occupying part of southern Iraq, where they are keeping an eye on Saddam Hussein's troops.
Schwarzkopf said the soldiers are not expected to remain in Iraq after a permanent cease-fire. But a permanent truce has been complicated by the rebellions by Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the country's south.
Schwarzkopf said U.S. logistics troops could be in the gulf as long as eight to 10 months to help load up equipment, but the vast majority of soldiers will be home before then.
Nearly 100,000 of the 540,000 American troops sent to the gulf in Operation Desert Shield have departed, the Central Command says.
The command, now based in Riyadh, plans to return soon to its headquarters in Tampa, Fla. But Schwarzkopf said Sunday: "There's a possibility we will be moving a forward headquarters element of Central Command - not the entirety . . . someplace over here on the gulf."
"But's there's an awful lot of negotiations that have to go on, the locations have to be accepted and all the arrangements have to be made . . . we're certainly much closer to that now than we've ever been before."
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported in today's editions that U.S. Army troops have driven deeper into Iraq. It said heavy armored units drove 60 miles north to the Euphrates River valley over the weekend in a major repositioning apparently aimed at intimidating Saddam.
The New York Times, quoting U.S. and Bahraini officials, today reported that the United States was close to signing an agreement with Bahrain to base part of the command in the island nation off Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials had been indicating for months that Bahrain was the desired location for the base.
The newspaper also said hundreds of Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles that had been arrayed against the allies are now combating the Iraqi insurgencies. The report quoted American officials as saying 700 of Iraq's estimated 4,550 tanks in the south escaped - 100 more than previously believed.
Several Shiite Muslim rebel groups as well as refugees quoted over Iranian state television and Tehran radio, said there were large weekend demonstrations in the Iraqi capital, which they said was ringed with loyalist troops.
The dissidents claim troops killed anti-Saddam Hussein demonstrators in Baghdad and used napalm, phosphorous and poison gas.
The claims could not be verified.
In other developments:
The head of the firm hired by the Kuwaiti government to find out the size and location of Saddam's wealth estimates that his family has skimmed $10 billion in oil profits since 1981. Jack Kroll, president of the New York-based Kroll Associates, spoke in interviews published today by the Financial Times, a British newspaper, and broadcast Sunday by CBS News' "60 Minutes."
Iran has protested to the United States about what it calls "illegal naval and air operations against Iranian reconnaissance planes" in the gulf, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said today. The agency, monitored in Nicosia, said 11 such cases had occurred in August and that Iran was demanding an explanation. It was unclear why Iran waited so long to complain.
by CNB