The United States and the Soviet Union issued a joint statement Tuesday night declaring the war in the Persian Gulf could end if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein makes an ”unequivocal agreement” to withdraw from Kuwait.
The Soviet-American statement on a potential end of the war came at the end of three days of talks between Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh and Secretary of State James A. Baker III.
It was the first indication from the Bush administration that the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq would be willing to give Hussein a last chance to withdraw before it pushes the war to a military conclusion.
”The ministers continue to believe that a cessation of hostilities would be possible if Iraq would make an unequivocal commitment to withdraw from Kuwait,” the statement said.
The joint statement was proposed by Moscow, which has expressed increasing unease that the allied bombardment of Iraq exceeds United Nations Security Council authority for military action to liberate Kuwait.
The U.S. agreed to the statement as part of a concerted attempt to take every possible political step to hold together the fragile international coalition arrayed against Hussein across the Persian Gulf.
Later Tuesday night, the White House said the statement reflected no change in policy at all, and wasn`t even worth mentioning in President Bush`s State of the Union address. Marlin Fitzwater said only a ”massive withdrawal” of Iraq from Kuwait could prompt a cease-fire.
In addition to seeking Iraq`s commitment to withdraw from Kuwait, the Soviet-American communique commits Baker and Bessmertnykh to working jointly to try to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict after the gulf war ends.
”Both ministers . . . agreed that in the aftermath of the crisis in the Persian Gulf, mutual U.S.-Soviet-led efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace and regional stability, in consultation with other parties in the region, will be greatly facilitated and enhanced,” the statement said.
There was no sign in the gulf region itself that the U.S. and its allies were turning down the heat. Nor did it appear that Hussein and his government were ready to talk.
U.S. pilots stopped an Iraqi armored column in its tracks overnight Monday, destroying 24 tanks, armored vehicles and supply trucks, according to allied commanders, while Iraq claimed a ”human shield” prisoner of war was killed when the allies bombed a government building.
Iraqi planes continued to fly to Iran to seek refuge, and American officials said they had been assured once again by Tehran that none of the 80 to 100 Iraqi planes, which include some of the best fighter jets Baghdad has, will be allowed to leave Iran until the war is over.
”I don`t know whether Saddam Hussein has ordered it. I don`t know whether it was something the Iraqi air force said they wanted to do. I do know that their combat forces are electing to leave the field, and that is, in my view, a sign of weakness,” said Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Pentagon briefing.
At the United Nations, Iran lodged a protest against Iraq for moving its warplanes into Iranian territory. ”The Islamic Republic of Iran has registered to the government of Iraq its strongest protest at the emergency landing of the aircraft,” said a letter from Ambassador Kamal Kharrazi to UN Secretary Gen. Javier Perez de Cuellar.
Iraq`s air force has been one of the key targets of allied pilots, who have destroyed 52 warplanes, 26 of them in the air. Shifting the planes to Iran may be recognition that even the reinforced bunkers where the planes are stored may not be strong enough to stand up to round-the-clock bombing raids. The attack on the Iraqi convoy came after a U.S. Marine unit close to the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border reported seeing action in the desert Monday night. While the Marines watched from the Saudi side of the border, warplanes attacked the column with bombs, rockets and cannon fire.
”They were sloppy and they were caught,” said Col. Ron Richard, spokesman for the Marine 2nd Division. The column appeared to be involved in a routine shift in position, Richard said. ”It was the first hard kill we`ve gotten on a big target.” The tanks and trucks were still burning at dawn Tuesday.
In another ground action early Tuesday, Marines crept within 1,000 yards of the Saudi-Kuwait border and fired more than 300 rounds of artillery, mortars and shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles on Iraqi bunkers and observation posts. There was no return fire.
At the Pentagon, Kelly said more than 490,000 U.S. troops are now in the theater of combat, pushing the number of allied troops over 700,000. Allied aircraft flew 2,600 sorties Tuesday and shot down one MiG-23 fighter. No allied planes were lost.
The key targets Tuesday were Hussein`s command and control structure, airfields, Scud missile launching sites, the Republican Guard and other military installations. Thus far in the war, allied warplanes have flown more than 27,000 sorties, Kelly said.
Allied officials have said the bombing runs on Iraq and Kuwait would continue into February as the air forces work to soften up the fortifications constructed to protect Hussein`s ground troops in the event they are attacked by the allied force.
As with the earlier briefings at the Pentagon and in Saudi Arabia, U.S. commanders were tight with specific information about how much ordnance had been dropped on the Iraqis and what specific targets had been hit.
They continue to say that the war against Iraq is going as planned, but without providing details. The Republican Guard has been targeted for heavy bombing since the outset of the war, but there is still no public assessment of how that campaign has gone.
”I don`t have a count,” Kelly said. ”I will tell you that they have been taking a heavy pounding. I will tell you the efforts are bearing fruit, but I don`t have any specific numbers on it.”
The Republican Guard, with up to 100,000 members, is Hussein`s strongest unit.
Perhaps responding to the announcement of the successful attack on the armored column, Iraqi radio claimed Iraqi soldiers staged three attacks in Saudi Arabia Monday, one of which stretched 12 miles across the border.
While allied officials said they had no information on the Iraqi claim, the Saudis said one of their border guard units had come under attack Monday night, and three border guards were slightly injured.
An Iraqi officer was killed in that incident, apparently hit by fire from his own troops. About 12 Iraqis were involved in the attack, which reached about 3 miles across the Saudi border.
The more disturbing announcement from Iraq came when announcers read what they described as an official army statement.
”One of the raids hit one of the departments of the Ministry of Industry, killing one of the captured foreign pilots who had been evacuated to that department,” said the military statement carried by the Iraqi news agency. The prisoner was not identified.
Last week, the Iraqis announced they would be locating prisoners of war at military and civil targets, an attempt to set up ”human shields” between Iraq`s infrastructure and the attacking allied forces.
Before the war, Hussein had sent hundreds of Western hostages to potential bomb sites before he allowed them to return home. Over the weekend, Iraqi radio reported some of the prisoners of war had been injured in allied air attacks.
Calling the Iraqi diplomat to the State Department, U.S. officials reminded Baghdad in a letter that it must abide by the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners. That same agreement requires Iraq to turn over the remains of any dead prisoners of war.
Earlier in the day, Bush and Baker met with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Maguid at the White House to discuss mounting opposition to the war from Muslim fundamentalists and left-wing groups. Egypt, with 35,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, is the most important Arab component of the coalition.
Maguid told reporters he brought Bush a letter from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that included assurances that Cairo`s official support for the war remains strong.
”It`s a friendly message, portraying the very strong relations between Egypt and the United States and reiterating the strong stand Egypt is taking in the situation in the gulf,” Maguid said.
In another development, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said the number of U.S. military reservists recalled to active duty for the war has reached 200,948.
