President Bush, bolstered by support from the United Nations as well as NATO allies, vowed Monday he was ”ruling out nothing at all,” including a blockade, to punish Iraqi aggression in the Persian Gulf. But he also faced the dilemma of 28 missing Americans, apparently in the hands of Iraqi troops. According to the State Department, the Americans were rounded up by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait and placed aboard buses for an unknown destination. Late Monday, a State Department official said that ”a dozen or so” of them had been reported to be in a Baghdad hotel and that the U.S. was seeking to verify the reports.
Bush long has stressed his concern for innocent Americans caught up in international upheaval and has said he would do whatever was necessary to protect their lives.
The aftermath of Iraq`s lightning-quick invasion of Kuwait last week triggered financial tremors around the world Monday. World oil prices shot up after Iraq all but shut down its export pipelines through Turkey, conceding that it could not sell the oil because of sanctions imposed by the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. In the last month, crude oil prices have shot up an eye-popping 70 percent.
Several members of Congress responded by calling for an investigation of possible price gouging, and Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner said the federal government was looking into the situation.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 93 points, or 3.3 percent, on Monday as the stock market responded to the economic fallout of the invasion, including fears it could precipitate a recession.
In Japan, which has joined the U.S. boycott of Iraqi oil despite its total dependence on imported petroleum, the Nikkei stock index dropped more than 3 percent Monday and then lost another 3.31 percent Tuesday.
As Bush worked to construct a concerted diplomatic front against Iraq, he moved key members of his Cabinet around the globe to press and protect U.S. interests.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia, beginning several days of meetings with King Fahd and other leaders there, presumably focusing on how to defend that oil-rich nation and staunch U.S. ally against any incursion by Iraq. The White House also announced Bush will dispatch Secretary of State James A. Baker III to Turkey this week to meet with President Turgut Ozal.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia contain major Iraqi oil pipelines. The administration is particularly concerned about the security of Saudi Arabia, America`s major foreign oil supplier, which is vulnerable to an invasion by Iraqi troops now poised on the Saudi-Kuwait border.
Bush won a substantial victory Monday afternoon when the UN Security Council ordered a worldwide embargo on trade with Iraq. The U.S.-sponsored resolution, approved 13-0 with two abstensions, sets up a series of sweeping economic and trade sanctions-including a ban on oil exports-designed to cripple Iraq`s economy. Yemen, the council`s only Arab member, and Cuba abstained.
It was the first such total boycott by the UN in 23 years, and all 159 members are required to abide by the decision.
Turkish President Ozal, in an interview with ABC News, said, ”We will obey the UN embargo,” which could lead to a complete shutdown of Iraq`s pipeline through that country to the Mediterranean.
As the Security Council voted, Bush was meeting in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He also met Monday night with NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Speaking to reporters huddled in the Rose Garden during a rainstorm, Bush said of the UN measures, ”We need to discuss full and total implementation of these sanctions, ruling out nothing at all. These sanctions must be enforced . . . The sanctions will be enforced whatever it takes.”
Thatcher, en route home from Aspen, Colo., said, ”I cannot remember a time when we had the world so strongly together against an action as now.”
In addition to solidifying the UN support, Bush appeared to be touching all bases with fellow NATO members as well, including the meetings with Thatcher and Mulroney and a call earlier in the day to Italian President Giulio Andreotti.
Earlier Monday, presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater described the situation in the Persian Gulf as ”extremely serious” and said, ”From the moment the first Iraqi soldier entered Kuwait, it has been clearly in the national interest to stop (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein. This is an overt situation. His tanks are real and moving. Our response is real and moving on all fronts-diplomatic, economic, political and military.”
But the disappearance of the 28 Americans in the volatile region highlighted the limitations on Bush`s ability to get tough with Hussein. There are an estimated 3,000 Americans living or working in Kuwait as well as 130 embassy officials and their dependents.
U.S. officials have not been able to determine exactly how many were actually in Kuwait at the time of the invasion. Some Americans escaped Kuwait by simply driving their cars over the border after the invasion started, while others could have left on vacation from a country where the summer heat can exceed 120 degrees.
”Our embassy in Kuwait confirmed that Westerners, including Americans, were taken from three hotels in Kuwait and have been placed on board buses by the Iraqis,” said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. ”We do not know their destination.”
She added it would be ”premature to call it hostage-taking at this moment.”
In London, the British Foreign Office said that those rounded up were passengers who had been stranded aboard a British Airways flight that was in transit at Kuwait Airport when Iraq invaded.
Tutwiler did not rule out the possibility that the Americans were being taken to Baghdad to continue their flight, although Baghdad`s airport was closed Monday. She called the incident ”a very serious matter.”
