Britain on Friday rejected a U.S. request for mine sweepers to be sent to the Persian Gulf, saying that it lacks the naval resources to defend the vessels and that such action might encourage Iran to lay more mines before the mine sweepers could get there.
West Germany and the Netherlands rejected similar requests from the Americans earlier this week, and on Friday the French foreign minister said Paris also had declined to supply any ships or aircraft to help sweep mines in the gulf.
The requests came after a Kuwaiti oil tanker, reregistered under the American flag as the USS Bridgeton, was damaged seriously on July 24 by a mine that was believed to have been laid by Iran.
David Mellor, minister of state in the Foreign Office, told reporters the British decision had been made ”at the very highest level,” meaning it came from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The decision represented a rare instance of Thatcher`s refusal to back the U.S. in a major policy action, and officials seemed anxious to dispel any notion that Britain was failing to meet its responsibilities as an ally.
Mellor said Thatcher attaches ”a high priority to the American determination to keep the sea lanes free” and supports action the U.S. is planning to clear mines from the gulf with its own helicopters.
But Mellor said British officials had concluded that if they sent mine sweepers to the gulf they would have to send other ships to protect them. Britain has committed more of its naval vessels to the gulf, proportionately, than any other nation, he said, with a three-ship naval escort force there now. Britain`s limited resources do not enable it to do more, Mellor said.
Mellor also noted that it would take several weeks for British mine sweepers to reach the gulf. A British decision to send mine sweepers, he said, might encourage the Iranians to lay more mines, and they would have plenty of time to do so.
”We have to take account of not being able to send our vessels into areas of danger unless we can protect them,” he said.
Until now, he noted, Iranian mine-laying has been limited to the area around Al Farsiyah island. ”Would this be a further ratchet of escalation that would cause Iran to lay mines farther south?” he asked, referring to a decision to send mine sweepers. Meanwhile, Iranian President Ali Khamenei warned Friday that Iran would inflict a ”crushing blow” on the United States unless Washington withdrew its forces from the gulf.
Tehran Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., quoted Khamenei as telling a prayer meeting in Tehran that the ”whirlpool” of the gulf is ”deadlier for the U.S. and its allies than for Iran.”
Evidently anticipating American criticism of the British decision, Mellor said it should not be seen as ”a major blow” to relations between the two countries.
”This government is a firmer friend of the United States than any,” he said. ”It would be wrong to wrench this out of context and see it as a hostile act. It is far from that.”
Recalling British support for U.S. bombing of Libya last year, which was unpopular politically in Britain, he said: ”We never take lightly requests from the United States. We have been prepared to bite on very hard bullets in the past.”
Britain also leases to the U.S. the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a staging post for Persian Gulf operations.
The American request for mine sweepers was contained in a message that U.S. Ambassador Charles Price delivered Thursday to Sir Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary. The British rejection was relayed to the State Department by the British Embassy in Washington Friday.
The U.S. Embassy in London and the State Department in Washington declined to comment Friday on the British decision. Department spokesman Charles Redman also would not say which other European allies had been approached.
But a few hours later, French Defense Minister Andre Giraud told reporters in Washington that France would not send ships or aircraft into the gulf.
Giraud said France is considering ”possibilities of contributing help in areas where the U.S. Navy is having difficulties.” But he added, ”We are not going to enter the gulf.” He said the French naval squadron in the region has no defense against mines and is not going to change its makeup.
Mellor stressed the importance that Britain attaches to efforts to reach a cease-fire in the war between Iran and Iraq. He said Britain is pursuing that through the United Nations, its contacts with the U.S. and its influence in the gulf. ”In the short term, we have concluded it would be better for us not to contribute to any escalation . . . that would encourage the Iranians to sow more mines,” he said.
The Royal Navy has 25 mine hunters and 17 mine sweepers stationed around the British Isles. Some of its large warships also have mine-sweeping capability.
In the gulf, meanwhile, the U.S. Navy continued to search Friday for three men missing after the crash of a Navy helicopter. Officials held out little hope the missing men could have survived.
The crash Thursday killed one crew member, the first American to die in the region since the U.S. began its escort operation to protect the Kuwaiti tankers flying the American flag.
Five people were rescued after the crash. One of the survivors was flown to a hospital in Bahrain, where he was reported Friday to be on a respirator. The SH-3G Sea King was on a flight from Bahrain to the USS LaSalle, flagship of the Navy`s nine-vessel Middle East Task Force, when it crashed close to the ship, Marine Maj. David Titus said. The cause of the crash was not clear, but U.S. officials said the craft went down as the result of an accident rather than an attack.
The U.S. Central Command identified the man killed in the crash as the copilot, Lt. (j.g.) James Lazevnick, 25, of Paulsboro, N.J. It said the missing were Lt. William Ramsburg, 31, of Scotland, S.D., the pilot; Radioman 2C Albert Duparl of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands; and Air Force Lt. Col. Horace Gentle, 44, of Mooresville, N.C.
The helicopter apparently hit the side of the LaSalle before plunging into the water, but Navy officials said Friday that they had not determined the extent of the damage to the ship. The LaSalle pulled into port at Bahrain late Friday.
An official of the Kuwait Oil Tanker Co., owner of the Bridgeton, said the company for the third straight day had to delay loading the damaged supertanker with crude oil.
The company, which is struggling to get a partial load of crude into the supertanker for a return trip down the gulf, blamed weather conditions for delays on Wednesday and Thursday. But the company official cited ”operational reasons” for Friday`s delay.
The official, who spoke on condition his name not be used, said the company hoped to continue loading the Bridgeton on Saturday but that additional ”days of delays” were expected even after the ship took on its load. The Bridgeton was to have left port by Friday on the return trip.
The Kuwaiti official would not comment on the reasons for the additional delays or disclose when the vessel might leave the port near Kuwait where it has been anchored since July 24, but he said the return trip could be delayed as much as a week.
One reason for the delay could be the Navy`s lack of mine-sweeping equipment for its escort mission.
U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on Wednesday ordered that eight American mine-sweeping helicopters be sent to the gulf. And on Friday Pentagon officials said they had decided to ship three or four small coastal mine sweepers to the region. But it will take the MSB-class boats almost a month to get there aboard a larger vessel.
Defense Department sources also told the Associated Press that on Thursday night a planeload of Navy sonar equipment, of a type that can be affixed to almost any type of boat, had left the U.S. along with a small number of Navy mine-warfare specialists to join an 18-man underwater demolition team working in the gulf.
