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Diplomacy dwindles as allies hammer gulf
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia - Marine
gunners hammered away at Iraqi
defense lines Tuesday and allied ships
swept the gulf’s waters for menacing
Iraqi mines as the
desperate days of
diplomacy
dwindled down
toward an all-out
assault on Ku
wait.
Moscow
gave Iraq an
other day or two to accept a secret
Soviet peace plan, a plan President
Bush was already dismissing as “well
short” of U.S. requirements.
A Soviet mediator urged the Des
ert Storm allies to delay the long
expected ground war, or risk bearing
“a great responsibility in history.” An
Iranian mediator said he was sure
Iraq’s bottom line would be simnle
An Iraqi pullout from Kuwait in ex
change for a U.S. pullout from Saudi
Arabia.
A senior Baghdad official told the
Iranians more than 20,000 Iraqis have
been killed, a Tehran newspaper re
ported.
“We’re totally prepared to do
whatever is necessary,” said the man
in overall charge of supplying the
troops, Lt. Gen. Gus Pagonis. “We’re
ready to go.”
Mines sown at the northern head
of the gulf will complicate any allied
plan for an amphibious landing by the
15,000 Marines aboard a flotilla of
some 30 ships.
A dozen minesweepers from the
U.S., Saudi and European navies criss
crossed the sea Tuesday in the hunt
for thousands of mines believed planted
by the Iraqis.
In one incident early Tuesday, a
British frigate spotted and marked a
floating mine, and divers from a U.S.
cruiser were lowered by helicopter
into the water to blow it up, a news
pool dispatch said.
The 600-foot-long helicopter-as
sault ship USS Tripoli remained on
duty Tuesday after its crew patched a
20-foot gash blown in its hull by a
mine Monday. But the billion-dollar
U.S. guided-missile ship Princeton
was pulled out of action and sent to a
gulf port for damage assessment.
The Princeton’s port rudder was
jammed and its port propeller-shaft
seal was leaking, the U.S. command
said. Unconfirmed reports also said it
suffered hull damage and cracks in its
supersUucture.
Marines opened up artillery fire
Tuesday on Iraqi bunkers and troop
concentrations across the Kuwaiti
Saudi border, south of the A1 Wafra
oilfield, a poo! report said. At least
seven secondary explosions were
reported, indicating a hit on ammuni
tion and field stores.
In an incident Monday, the Iraqis
dropped 20 to 30 artillery shells on a
U.S. unit at the front, wounding one
American, the U.S. command said. It
did not identify the unit.
The U.S. command Tuesday re
ported one plane newly lost in the
attacks in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
The status of the pilot of the A-10
“tank killer” was unknown.
The U.S. command has been re
luctant to estimate overall Iraqi casu
alties, but one senior military source
Tuesday said he believed the Iraqi
military has suffered “horrendous
casualties.”
m
Proposal ‘inadequate’
Bush dismisses Soviet peace plan
WASHINGTON - President Bush
on Tuesday dismissed a Soviet pro
posal for ending the war in the Per
sian Gulf as “well short of what would
be required.” The Pentagon declared
its readiness to fight a ground war
against Iraq and predicted victory “in
short order.”
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
told Congress that any pause in the
war would allow Saddam Hussein to
regroup his army, which has been
weakened by relentless air strikes.
“A cease-fire, a pause of some
kind, would in fact be very dangerous
from die standpoint of \J .S. and alliec
force,” Cheney said.
Washington was abuzz with specu
lation that a ground war was immi
nent. “The general expectation is it’s
not far off,” Sen. Claiborne Pell, D
R.I., said as he left a White House
meeting between Bush and congres
sional leaders.
The president was quoted by his
spokesman as telling the lawmakers,
“I obviously cannot say exactly when
aground operation might commence.
What I can say is, our preparations
are on schedule.”
The Pentagon played the same tunc.
“We arc ready now (for a ground war)
if the leadership decides that’s what
they want to do,” said Li. Gen. Tho
mas Kelly, director of operations for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Of the Iraqi forces, Kelly said:
“They will be defeated in short order
if we initiate a ground campaign.”
Marlin Fitzwater, the White House
- 44
We are ready now (for
ground war) if the
leadership decides
that’s what they want
to do.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly
Joint Chief of Staff director of
operations
--
l
press secretary, said, “We’re assum
ing that the war will have to be prose
cuted to the end. We are moving
along that course. . . . That’s where
the planning is taking us.”
The administration stepped back
from its announced willingness to help
rebuild Iraq after the war. “We arc not
about to pay to rebuild Iraq,” Bush
told the lawmakers.
“It’s a rich country, if they'd just
use their resources wisely,” Bush said,
according to one participant.
After a day of silence about
Moscow’s proposal to end the war,
Bush declared it was inadequate.
“There are no negotiations. The
goals have been set out,” Bush said at
a picture-taking session with the
congressional leaders. “There will be
no concessions.”
Bush sent a cable Monday night to
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
specifying U.S. objections to his pro
posal. “I’ve been frank with him on
this.”
The president said Gorbachev had
asked that details of the plan be kept
secret, and Bush pledged not to di
vulge the contents. Gorbachev had
given the plan to Iraqi Foreign Minis
ter Tariq Aziz on Monday and re
quested a speedy reply.
The administration defended Gor
bachev’s right to discuss peace with
Iraq. However, Fitzwater character
ized Gorbachev’s offer as a matter
between Moscow and Baghdad and
said Washington would not be bound
by any such agreement.
Nor was there any guarantee to
Gorbachev that a ground war would
be delayed while he talked with Iraq,
Fitzwater said.
House Speaker Thomas Foley, D~
Wash., said he did not believe Bush
had rejected Moscow’s plan outright,
but was waiting to hear Iraq’s re
sponse.
“He’s not rejecting, he’s not ac
cepting it,” Foley said. “I think they’re
waiting for the reaction to the Soviet
offer by the Iraqis.”
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said
Bush told the lawmakers the Soviet
proposal “had stripped oul all of the
conditions that the Iraqis had included
in their statement on Friday.”
House Minority Leader Robert
Michel, R-1U., said, “I don’t see that
anybody’s optimistic, because frankly
the conditions are still there. We don’t
want to be in any negotiating position
at all.”
- — _
Russian Federation president
calls on Gorbachev to resign
MOSCOW - Boris Yeltsin made
an unprecedented televised appeal
Tuesday for the resignation of
Mikhail Gorbachev, accusing the
Soviet president of sacrificing re
forms in adrive for personal power.
Yeltsin has been a strident and
frequent critic of Gorbachev, but
never before called for him to step
down. The attack seemed certain
to exacerbate the enmity between
the two men and to heighten the
Soviet political crisis.
“I warned in 1987 that Gor
bachev has in his character a ten
dency to absolute personal power,”
Yeltsin said. “He has done all that
and has led the country to a dicta
torship, giving it a pretty name:
presidential rule.”
As president of Russia, the larg
est Soviet republic, Yeltsin enjoys
immense personal popularity but
has had difficulty parlaying that
into the kind of political power
Gorbachev wields. Gorbachev has
run the Soviet Union for nearly six
years, but has been widely criti
cized for the failing economy and
the increasing disorder in Soviet
society.
Yeltsin’s nationwide broadcast
was a first for the Soviet Union.
Never before had an opposition
leader been granted so much time
on state-controlled television.
His remarks came after most
government offices closed but prior
to peak viewing hours. There was
no immediate reaction from Krem
lin spokesmen.
In the broadcast, Yeltsin said
his biggest mistake since becom
ing president of the Russian Fed
eration parliament last May was
placing too much trust in Gor
bachev’s promises of economic and
political reform.
The heart of Yel tsin ’ s argument
was that power should be shifted
from the central government, led
by Gorbachev, to the 15 Soviet
republics.
“I distance myself from the
position and policies of the (So
viet) president. I am in favor of his
immediate resignation, with the
Ipower being transferred to a col
lective organ, the Federation Coun
cil of the republic(s),” he said.
The Federation Council, con
sisting of the Soviet president, vice
president and heads of the repub
lics, was created at Gorbachev’s
initiative.
Reformers’ fears of a shift to
ward a harder line were heightened
in December by the resignation of
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevard
nadze, who warned of a coming
“dictatorship.”
Yeltsin, 60, has quit the Com
munist Party and recently has been
under attack by hardliners. His aides I
say opponents have collected
enough
signatures in the Russian parlia
ment to call for a special session at
which they are expected to press
for a vote of no-confidence.
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Show of strength
IRA: Attacks can be anywhere I
LONDON - The Irish Republican
Army bombing of Victoria Station
has reminded the British that the IRA
can randomly attack almost anywhere,
as it did in the 1970s at pubs, shops
and railroad stations.
Some analysts believe the inten
tion is to subject London to the dis
ruption and security checks that are
part of life in Belfast, capital of the
British province of Northern Ireland.
“In the IRA there’s a feeling that
events in Northern Ireland have been
contained somewhat and most British
people dismiss news of things hap
pening there,” said lan Geldard, a
researcher at London’s Institute for
the Study of Terrorism.
“But when they come over here
and attack in London in particular,
they arc bringing the war right to our
doorsteps,”Geldard added in an inter
view.
The bomb that killed a 36-year
oldcivilservantandinjured40pcoplc
at Victoria Station on Monday was
the IRA’s first lethal attack on a
crowded, purely civilian target in an
English city since the 1983 bombing
of Harrods department store.
That attack, which killed five people
including an American, and injured
91, was immediately recognized by
the IRA as a public relations blunder.
The outlawed organization, which
seeks to end British rule in Northern
Ireland, apologized and said there
had been a mistake.
In contrast, the bombing at Victo
ria was a textbook success from the
IRA’s viewpoint of publicity, disrup
tion, and stretching police resources
in the midst of a security alert against
Iraqi-inspired terrorist attacks.
The IRA blames the civilian casu
alties on the police, saying they ig
nored a telephone warning hours af
ter another explosion at London’s
Paddington station.
Hundreds of thousands of com
muters were delayed or stranded later
Monday with the closure of all 12 of
the capital’s main railroad stations.
On Tuesday, five British Rail sta
tions, including London’s busy Char
ing Cross, were closed during peak
periods as police checked bomb hoaxes
and reports of suspicious packages.
In Belfast, the IRA frequently uses
bombs, take bombs and hoax calls to
disrupt business in the city center. It
has also complained that police some
times decide nol to evacuate build
ings despite bomb threats.
Nebraskan
Editor Eric Planner
472- 1766
Managing Editor Victoria Ayotte
Assoc News Editors Jana Padarsan
Emily Rosenbaum
Editorial Page Editor Bob Nelson
Wire Editor Jennifer O'ClIka
Copy Desk Editor Diana Brayton
Publications Board
Chairman Bill Vobsjda
436-9993
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
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