THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609140241
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 106 lines
The United States is deploying 5,000 troops in Kuwait this weekend, and Defense Secretary William Perry has been dispatched for talks with allies in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon said Friday.
The troops - two battalions from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas - will bolster the U.S. military buildup in the confrontation with Iraq.
The action is being taken ``as a prudent measure to protect our interests in the Middle East,'' said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Scott Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman.
The troops are to join 1,200 soldiers who have been exercising in Kuwait since August. They will bring out of storage M1-A1 tanks and M2-A2 Bradley fighting vehicles already positioned in Kuwait and will take part in exercise ``Intrinsic Action,'' a desert war game.
Dispatch of the troops is the latest in a series of moves ordered by President Clinton to beef up U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf in the wake of aggression against Kurdish minorities in Iraq ordered by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Earlier Friday, Saddam announced he was conditionally halting Iraqi missile attacks on American jets.
In response, the Clinton administration provided further warnings for Saddam. A fresh strike against Iraq still seemed likely within a few days.
Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council said it was halting missile attacks on U.S. and allied jets enforcing no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq as of 4 p.m. EDT.
But the halt applied only if the jets ceased patrolling the zones, the government said. Otherwise, the attacks would resume.
Iraq claimed to have fired anti-aircraft missiles at American jets in the zones twice in the past two days, in response to the allied widening of the southern zone and a pair of attacks by U.S. cruise missiles. No planes were hit, and the Pentagon said it could confirm only one day's firings.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said: ``Saddam Hussein knows what has to happen if he's going to step back from the brink of this problem that he has with the United States.
``He has to stop his aggression. He has to stop his military movements, which have posed an unacceptable risk to the United States and to our partners. . . . The United States' position here is very clear.''
``The president himself has said it is actions that speak louder than words,'' White House spokesman Michael McCurry said. ``And we'll be looking at actions not statements from Baghdad.''
The Air Force said that eight radar-evading Stealth fighters arrived in Kuwait, along with a transport plane filled with support personnel. Four B-52 bombers were believed to be in position on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
The service said it also was sending 18 more F-16 fighters from the United States to Saudi Arabia, and it was keeping in the area an F-16 group the new fighters were to replace.
The aircraft carrier Enterprise and three other Norfolk-based warships continued to steam toward the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean. And the Army said it had alerted soldiers from two Patriot missile batteries for duty in the gulf.
The Enterprise, along with the nuclear fast-attack submarine Norfolk and the fast combat support ship Supply, was expected to reach the Red Sea by today, but it was still several more days from the gulf. Another Norfolk-based ship, the destroyer Stump, was already headed for the gulf from the Red Sea.
The carrier could operate from the Red Sea, but it would need permission from the edgy Saudis to fly over Saudi Arabia.
Another carrier, the Carl Vinson of Bremerton, Wash., already is in the gulf.
Saddam's announcement came as top officials of the Clinton administration huddled at the White House on Friday and decided to send Perry to the Persian Gulf region. Perry was expected to confer this weekend with various Persian Gulf leaders about possible next steps in the standoff with Iraq.
In its announcement Friday, Iraq said its actions came at the request of Russia and was designed to provide some breathing room for diplomacy.
Pentagon officials said it appeared that the Iraqis had also stopped repairing air-defense sites in southern Iraq damaged by recent U.S. missile attacks. The Clinton administration demanded this week that the government stop the repairs if Iraq hoped to avoid a devastating U.S. strike.
The Pentagon responded cautiously, saying in a statement, ``this is an encouraging move toward reducing tension.''
Later McCurry, the White House spokesman said, ``We've made it . . . abundantly clear to Saddam Hussein that his reckless behavior will have consequences.
``We've also made it quite clear that we will protect our pilots and we will enforce the no-fly zone and we will look less-than-generously on any effort to reconstitute his air defense systems, especially in the south in the expanded no-fly zone.'' MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by Knight-Ridder News
Service, The Associated Press and The New York Times.
Related story on page A13. Families react to news of Enterprise,
other ships' deployment to Persian Gulf.
UPDATES:
United States:
Forces: Two battalions from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood,
Texas.
Armaments: M1-A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles already
in Kuwait, self-propelled artillery units and air-defense troops
equipped with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Iraq:
Saddam Hussein said he had conditionally halted missile attacks on
U.S. jets. If the jets continue to patrol the no-fly zones, the attacks
will resume. by CNB