American flags were hoisted over two Kuwaiti tankers Tuesday, and United States Navy vessels were poised to escort the ships through the Persian Gulf. Gulf shipping sources said they expected the tankers and their American escorts to weigh anchor Tuesday night or Wednesday morning and sail north for the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the gulf. From there they will make a dangerous 1,300-mile round-trip journey to a Kuwaiti oil terminal at the northern end of the waterway.
Sources said it would take two days for the convoy to reach Kuwait, where the tankers are expected to remain for six days before sailing back to international waters off Khor Fakkan.
The U.S. Middle East Task Force has nine warships in the gulf with orders from President Reagan to shoot at any potential attackers. The force includes three guided missile cruisers, four guided missile frigates, a guided missile destroyer and the command ship, the USS LaSalle. Six other warships, including the aircraft carrier Constellation, are standing by in the northern Arabian Sea, just outside the gulf.
Navy F-14 Tomcat interceptors and electronic jamming aircraft will fly from the Constellation to accompany the tanker convoy through the Strait of Hormuz, where the ships will pass within 12 miles of the Iranian coast and three mobile batteries of Chinese-supplied Silkworm missiles, U.S. officials in Washington said.
According to a pool of 10 American reporters accompanying the convoy, the Kuwaiti tankers are being escorted by the destroyer Kidd, the cruiser Fox and the frigate Crommelin.
The reflagging took place without fanfare early Tuesday, several hours after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution ordering Iraq and Iran to observe an immediate cease-fire in their war of almost seven years. The resolution also demanded that the two belligerents withdraw their troops behind their international borders or face sanctions.
Iran`s UN delegate, Said Rajaie Khorassani, said in New York that his government had not yet decided how to respond to the resolution, but ”I have very good reason to be pessimistic.” Tehran had already said it would disregard a call for a cease-fire.
Nevertheless, U.S. State Department officials said they were hopeful that a lull in the tanker war may settle in as both Iran and Iraq try to avoid being the first to strike following the UN action.
”Both sides realize the need not to be seen as the first to be the violator,” one official said in Washington.
Meanwhile, the White House said Reagan received a ”generally positive”
private letter from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last Friday but rejected his proposals for increased U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the Persian Gulf.
Reagan has no interest in Gorbachev`s reported request for high-level diplomatic talks between Washington and Moscow on the situation, according to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.
The Gorbachev letter came in response to a message Reagan had sent requesting Soviet support for UN efforts to mediate an end to the Iran-Iraq war, Fitzwater said.
The deputy spokesman of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Boris Pyadyshev, said in Moscow that Gorbachev in his letter had called for more U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the gulf and for talks on the subject in ”any format.”
Fitzwater refused to say whether Gorbachev had suggested a joint U.S.-Soviet effort to maintain free navigation in the Persian Gulf, but he said the administration believes the UN ”is the appropriate forum” for debate on the issue.
The reflagging operation has been portrayed by the Reagan administration as an effort to prevent Moscow from seizing the diplomatic and military initiative in the gulf.
On Capitol Hill, the Senate passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that Reagan should pursue alternatives to the reflagging, including the use of U.S. merchant marine ships in the gulf.
Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas, speaking to reporters after GOP congressional leaders met with Reagan, said the Republican leadership is apprehensive.
”We may agree with the President`s policy; we are not so sure of the tactics. We are concerned that it does raise the ante,” Dole said.
Although the idea of military escorts for Kuwaiti tankers has provoked considerable opposition in Congress, efforts to postpone the operation failed. In the gulf Tuesday morning, a group of journalists watched as the American reflagging operation got underway. Flying in a helicopter about 20 miles off the United Arab Emirates` coast on the Arabian Sea near Khor Fakkan, the reporters saw the American flags fluttering in a strong wind on the sterns of the massive 414,366-ton Bridgeton and the 48,233-ton Gas Prince while three U.S. Navy warships stood at anchor nearby in international waters.
During the overflight, a U.S. Navy radio operator on one of the warships warned the civilian helicopter pilot to remain two miles away from the tankers. But the star-spangled flags were clearly distinguishable through the long lens of a television camera on board.
The U.S. government has told the world`s news media to steer clear of the escort convoys in the gulf, warning that close approaches could be dangerous because of the U.S. fleet`s hair-trigger rules of engagement.
The hoisting of the Stars and Stripes on the first 2 of 11 Kuwaiti supertankers that will carry American flags began the formal process that entitles the ships to U.S. naval protection in the gulf. Two American captains, whose presence is required by U.S. law, boarded the tankers Monday. Shipping sources identified the captains as Frank Seitz on the Bridgeton and Joseph Roach on the Gas Prince.
Kuwait announced Sunday that all the Iranian mines that had blocked the shipping channel to its principal oil terminal, Al-Ahmadi, had been cleared, but military sources say Iran could easily lay more mines from the scores of fishing boats that ply the gulf every day.
Iran has singled out Kuwaiti tankers for attack in recent months because of Kuwait`s support for Iraq. No attacks have been reported by either side in the last week, but Iran has increased its searches of ships entering the Strait of Hormuz to ensure that they are not carrying war materiel bound for Iraq.
Meanwhile Tuesday in Paris, France announced that it was assigning two frigates to the gulf to protect French shipping in the waterway. An Iranian gunboat attacked a French container vessel, the Ville d`Anvers, last week.
France, operating from its Red Sea base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, has maintained two warships in the northern Arabian Sea since the gulf war started in September, 1980. Tuesday`s announcement, however, marked the first time that France has ordered the warships into the gulf.
Western diplomats said the heightened French profile in the gulf also appeared connected to France`s diplomatic break with Iran last week over the suspected involvement of an Iranian Embassy interpreter in a series of terrorist bombings in Paris last year that killed 13 people.
In London, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Britain, which provides naval protection for its shipping in the Persian Gulf, would individually consider applications by foreign ships to fly the British flag.
But Thatcher made clear she was not inviting foreign vessels to seek such registration.
Thatcher was answering questions in Parliament as the U.S. warships made preparations to escort the two Kuwaiti tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to Reuters news service, Britain has provided naval support for its vessels through the strait for several years, at the rate of around five a week.
Pressed by the opposition on whether her government planned to follow Washington`s line, Thatcher replied, ”If other ships apply to fly the British flag, that application is considered separately in each case.”
The Kuwaitis, looking for as much political backing as possible, have approached the five permament members of the UN Security Council about registering their vessels. Britain has so far offered a lukewarm response, raising technical points about such ships having to meet British standards and be owned by companies in Britain.
