Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991 TAG: 9104160317
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times/ and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As fears continued of Iraqi attacks against the fleeing Kurds, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater pointedly would not rule out the use of U.S. troops to protect refugee areas or to help with refugee aid within Iraqi territory.
"I couldn't be that categorical," Fitzwater said when asked if he can rule out deployment of U.S. forces in northern Iraq. "You can't say there won't be some moving in and out."
In the past, administration officials privately have conceded that the U.S. hope of staying solely on the Turkish side of the border may be impossible, but Fitzwater's remarks were the first public admission.
Fitzwater also conceded that the administration has given up the goal, announced only last week, of turning the refugee effort over to international organizations within a month. "We hope that they'll be able to do the job themselves as fast as possible," he said. "The end-of-the-month part, I don't know about that."
"Supplies and medical assistance are being moved in as fast as is humanly possible," said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. Nonetheless, she added, relief organizations along the Iraqi-Turkish border "estimate that between 400 and 1,000 people there are dying every day, mostly from preventable diseases." No estimate exists of deaths in the border region of Iraq and Iran.
Moreover, Tutwiler said, the toll is expected to mount in the days to come with some 1 million refugees having fled from Iraq into Iran and nearly 400,000 into Turkey and a similar number still camped on the Iraqi side of the border.
The refugee deaths are likely to mount in the coming days, Tutwiler warned. "As each day goes by, these people become weaker," she said.
In addition to disease, she noted, the refugees may face man-made dangers.
"There have been some reports that we saw this morning of shootings [of refugees] by Turkish military," she said. "We can neither confirm nor deny the reports of alleged shooting of refugees or looting of relief supplies. We are checking on these reports, and we obviously certainly hope that they are not correct."
British Prime Minister John Major Friday warned that Western countries may need to consider using force to protect the Kurds from the Iraqi army. At the White House, spokesman Fitzwater was less direct, but said that the Bush administration generally agrees.
"Whether or not you should have forces actually in the camps, and how many, what they should do, that sort of thing" is still under discussion, Fitzwater said.
But, he added, "the overall objective of ensuring the safety of the camps and having a military backup of some kind is agreed upon by all parties. I think we're together on that."
Kurdish rebels on Monday renewed a plea for U.N. protection from the Iraqi army.
Iraq, meanwhile, claimed that Kurdish families were returning to the regions around Dohuk, along the Turkish border, and Erbil, near Iran, because of the government's offer of amnesty.
In Iran, Kurdish rebel leaders said their men were returning to Iraq - but to fight, not surrender.
Iran's official radio said that the country's Red Crescent Society, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross, was running out of relief supplies for more than 900,000 Iraqi Kurds who have fled into Iran.
The Iranian news agency reported new fighting in southern Iraq. It quoted refugees arriving in southern Iran as saying there were clashes in the towns of Tanuma, Kahla, Amara, Nasseriya and Al-Qurna. Plumes of smoke rising over Basra were visible from the Iranian border, it said.
Further north, in the Kurdish-dominated city of Sardasht, Iran, exiled rebel leaders said they were recruiting men who would leave their wives and children in the camps and return to fight Saddam's army.
by CNB