DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710040364

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   58 lines

COHEN ORDERS NIMITZ TO PERSIAN GULF AMID TENSION INCURSIONS BY IRAN INTO IRAQ'S NO-FLY ZONE CITED

Defense Secretary William Cohen on Friday ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz and its escorting warships to skip a port call at Singapore to get to the Persian Gulf as soon as possible.

The hurry-up is linked to U.S. warnings to Iran earlier this week not to repeat its cross-border air attacks into southern Iraq. The Clinton administration told Iran that its raids Monday violated a U.S.-enforced ``no-fly'' zone and could trigger U.S. retaliation.

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Richard Bridges said Cohen ordered the Nimitz to skip the Singapore stop in order to arrive in the Gulf early. Navy officials said it would get there by mid-October, two weeks earlier than planned.

The prospect of escalating tensions in the Gulf - a shipping route for much of the world's oil supplies - triggered a run-up in energy prices Friday. Crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit an eight-month high, gaining 99 cents to $22.76 a barrel.

The Nimitz, a nuclear-powered carrier with dozens of F/A-18 fighters and other aircraft aboard, is currently in the South China Sea on a round-the-world deployment that began Sept. 1.

Under long-standing Navy plans, the 1,092-foot-long warship will shift its home port from to Norfolk following its round-the-world cruise, which extends from the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean and Adriatic seas and Atlantic Ocean.

The transfer is necessary for the Nimitz to receive a $2 billion overhaul during 1998-2000 at Newport News Shipbuilding, where the ship's two nuclear reactors will be refueled for the first time since the ship was commissioned in 1975.

U.S. Navy 5th Fleet ships already in the Gulf include five destroyers, three guided-missile frigates and two mine countermeasure ships. There is no aircraft carrier in the Gulf now.

The ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq is patrolled by U.S. Air Force planes based in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The restricted zone was created after the 1991 Gulf War to stop Iraqi government forces from crushing rebel groups.

On Monday, Iranian planes bombed bases in southern Iraq held by Iranian rebel groups. The next day the Clinton administration said it had put Iran on notice that, if its pilots again intrude into that air space, they risk getting shot down.

``We made it clear to Iran that flights such as the one they made on (Monday) complicate the enforcement of the no-fly zone,'' Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday.

He said that was communicated to Iran through British diplomatic channels.

At the White House, a National Security Council official said the United States suspects that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might use the Iranian attacks as an excuse to challenge the ``no-fly'' zone and to block U.N. weapons inspections. Earlier this week U.N. inspectors were stopped from visiting three sites in Iraq. KEYWORDS: U.S.S. NIMITZ

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