By Rick Atkinson and Ann Devroy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 23, 1991; Page A01

Post time line

President Bush yesterday gave Iraq until noon today to begin an "immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait" or face an allied ground attack.

Brushing aside an initial Soviet-brokered proposal to end the Persian Gulf War, Bush delivered his ultimatum in a terse Rose Garden statement that also demanded a complete pullout of all Iraqi forces within one week and excoriated Iraq for a "scorched-earth policy" that has resulted in nearly 150 new Kuwaiti oil well fires.

Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council denounced the president's "shameful ultimatum" and affirmed its preference for a revised Soviet plan, unveiled after Bush's demand, that would allow three weeks for the withdrawal. The Iraqi statement, read by a spokesman in Baghdad, also called for a U.N. Security Council commission to investigate war damage in Iraq and Kuwait.

In a day of intense diplomatic drama -- punctuated with salvos of personal invective between Washington and Baghdad -- the Iraqis avoided flatly rejecting Bush's high noon deadline (EST), while administration officials were vague about whether the allies would still launch a ground attack if Iraq begins to withdraw under the more protracted Soviet timetable. Moscow, seeking support for its proposal, sent copies of it to members of the U.N. Security Council; but none of the 15 council members requested either a formal meeting or informal consultations, apparently preferring to see what today's developments bring.

The Soviets appeared to have taken into account the U.S. demands in retailoring an earlier eight-point plan, disclosed Thursday night, into yesterday's somewhat tougher six-point version. But significant gaps persisted between what Washington wants and what Baghdad seems willing to accept in the Soviet plan.

The U.S. demands, in addition to insisting on a one-week timetable, include both withdrawal from Kuwait City and release of all prisoners of war within 48 hours, plus Iraq's removal of mines and booby traps and the right of allied aircraft to exercise "exclusive control over and use of all Kuwaiti airspace." Any breach of the terms will bring an "instant and sharp" response, according to the White House statement read by spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

The Soviet proposal gives Iraqi troops four days to vacate Kuwait City and three weeks to leave the country, starting the day after a cease-fire; prisoners of war are to be freed in 72 hours; and all U.N. Security Council resolutions, including the imposition of economic sanctions, are to be lifted after completion of the troop withdrawal. Senior U.S. government officials have suggested that some form of embargo and blockade of Iraq may be necessary after the war to prevent Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from rebuilding a powerful war machine.

Kremlin spokesman Vitaly Ignatenko, who disclosed Moscow's six-point plan about four hours after Bush's Rose Garden statement, said the proposal reflected negotiations between President Mikhail Gorbachev and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Ignatenko, hinting that Aziz had resisted pressure to move closer to the U.S. terms, said the plan contained "the maximum of what could be achieved in the current situation."

The Iraqi statement came about an hour later, seeming to confirm an assertion by Ignatenko that "Baghdad clearly understands it has to count every minute." Without specifically accepting the six-point proposal, the communique said Aziz was "authorized" by Saddam "to be committed to whatever is agreed upon with the Soviets with regard to their peace initiative." The short statement also was full of personal invective for Bush, mentioning the president's name 14 times and declaring, "We neither respect him nor are we afraid of his aggressive force."

For his part, Bush was no less hostile, invoking Saddam's name eight times in yesterday's remarks and warning the Iraqi leader "that he risks subjecting the Iraqi people to further hardship." That view was endorsed roundly by several European allies who expressed solid support for the ultimatum. In Paris, Defense Minister Pierre Joxe warned that "the start of land operations is now programmed. It's a question of just a few hours." British Prime Minister John Major added, "We are not prepared to bargain, and we are certainly not prepared to be strung along by them."

Support on Capitol Hill

Members of Congress also rallied behind the president's ultimatum, although they were divided over whether the United States should immediately attack if Iraq does not meet the deadline. "I do not believe differences between the U.S. and the Soviet plan justify undertaking a ground war at this time," Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned. But Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) countered, "No more stalls, no more double talk -- it's time for action."

Should Baghdad accept Bush's timetable, a senior Pentagon official said that Iraqi forces in a week "would be lucky" to salvage half of the equipment and one-fifth of the ammunition that remains in Kuwait after more than five weeks of allied bombing. To elude the bombers, many tanks and other vehicles have been buried so long without regular maintenance that they will not be capable of a hasty retreat, the official added. The latest U.S. tally of bomb damage is that 1,560 Iraqi tanks have been destroyed of the 4,200 deployed at the start of the war in Kuwait and southern Iraq, according to another senior official.

But one issue still perplexing senior U.S. policy-makers is whether Saddam remains firmly in charge of his government and army, or whether Aziz may be negotiating on behalf of other masters. Regardless of the current political realities in Baghdad, the American military again declared itself ready for combat yesterday.

"U.S. forces are fully prepared for execution of any action or any order given by the president of the United States," Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm, declared through a spokesman.

A senior U.S. official said that Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, specifically asked Bush Thursday night to issue a deadline for Iraq's withdrawal. The decision to do so, said the official, reflected White House determination "to not let {Gorbachev} dominate the discussion . . . . We had to take the initiative back from the Soviets and say, 'Look, we are the coalition and we will set the terms for how this war will end.'"

The president also wants to deprive Saddam of what the official called "a Nasser-like victory," a reference to the former Egyptian president whose stature in the Arab world soared after he defied the Western powers. "A clear military defeat is necessary to make {Saddam's} claims of victory less credible," the official added.

Bush disclosed the new oil fires in Kuwait, saying they represented a scorched-earth policy in Kuwait ordered by Saddam "anticipating perhaps that he will now be forced to leave." Iraqi forces, Bush said, are "wantonly setting fires to and destroying the oil wells, the oil tanks, the export terminals and other installations of that small country. Indeed, they are destroying the entire oil production system of Kuwait."

Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, subsequently reported that "well over 149 wells have been destroyed in the last 24 hours and are burning. About 25 percent of the Kuwaiti oil fields are covered by black smoke. Other facilities are being systematically destroyed, too." A senior Pentagon official said some fires will burn out quickly, but "some of that Kuwaiti oil is under great pressure . . . so it's a very complicated process to contain the fires."

Kuwaiti Wells Ablaze

Pentagon officials reported that the recent spree of sabotage means that about 20 percent of Kuwait's 950 wells have now been set ablaze, a figure which includes the 50 to 60 wells reported burning last week.

Using aerial photographs and drawings, Rear Adm. Mike McConnell, intelligence director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed at yesterday's Pentagon briefing that much of eastern Kuwait is covered with smoke that now extends as far south as Riyadh. The oily smoke contains toxic hydrogen sulfide, McConnell said, and U.S. officials are puzzled about why the Iraqis would allegedly subject their own forces to the worst of the fumes.

Allied officials speculated that the sabotage, like that reportedly inflicted on Kuwait's supertanker oil platform, was undertaken either out of spite or to complicate allied military operations. U.S. and Saudi claims last month of an Iraqi-caused oil spill now appear to be considerably exaggerated. Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, operations director for the Joint Chiefs, largely discounted the disruptive impact of the smoke, saying it "may require some work-arounds . . . {but} if we've got to go through the smoke, we know how to do that."

British Jaguar bombers found that the fires "hindered" their attacks against Iraqi artillery batteries yesterday, although commanders "at the moment are not significantly concerned," Group Capt. Niall Irving reported.

In other combat action, waves of U.S. warplanes rained napalm and powerful fuel-air explosives onto Iraqi defenses yesterday, according to military officials in Saudi Arabia. Napalm, an explosively flammable gel that achieved notoriety in Vietnam, was used to set fire to the oil-filled trenches that are part of an Iraqi tactic to slow any allied ground attack, according to Lt. Cmdr. John Tull, a Central Command spokesman. A senior Marine officer told the Associated Press that the gel also was intended to reach entrenched troops.

The napalm bombardment, disclosed for the first time yesterday, is part of an intensified allied program of "battlefield preparation" that included more than 1,000 air sorties against targets in Kuwait and southern Iraq and increasingly violent artillery barrages. The firepower, Neal vowed, is "just the tip of the iceberg" confronting Iraq. In one artillery skirmish, a U.S. Marine was killed and five others wounded.

Saudi forces also worked on punching holes in the Iraqi defense, as a reconnaissance patrol "swept through an Iraqi minefield and cleared a path 60 meters wide," Col. Ahmed Robayan said. The Saudis found and defused 75 mines of three different varieties during the sweep, which pushed six miles into Iraqi-held territory under artillery fire, the colonel added. Robayan also provided a succinct summary of what allied forces are doing in preparation for a ground attack: "Reconnaissance in force, screening and trying to learn as much as you can about the enemy, his reaction time, his weapons systems, his minefields and so on."

Next Move Baghdad's

U.S. officials insisted yesterday that the next move in the Persian Gulf drama is up to Baghdad. "If {the Iraqis} could meet the Soviet plan, they can take a few more steps and meet our plan," Fitzwater said. Bush, in his Rose Garden statement, said "we must hear publicly and authoritatively {Saddam's} acceptance" of the U.S. ultimatum, which Fitzwater said means directly from the Iraqi government to the United Nations and not through a spokesman or television announcements.

The ultimatum followed a furious round of diplomacy that included cables or phone calls to more than 20 coalition partners. The president personally talked to the leaders of Egypt, Britain, Canada and France to describe both the U.S. and Soviet efforts. Television cameras admitted to the Rose Garden for the 10 a.m. statement caught Bush through the window of his White House office, still talking on the phone to French President Francois Mitterrand.

The White House also sought to dismiss the Iraqi statement, which rebuked the president for his "bloodstained hands."

"We are so leery of things spoken {by Baghdad}," Fitzwater said, "that we'll be guided by two things only" -- an official Iraqi statement to the United Nations or "physical evidence" that a massive withdrawal has begun. One reason for demanding control of the air space over Kuwait is to closely monitor that evidence, he added. Bush and Gorbachev agreed during a phone conversation yesterday that they "just don't know" what Saddam will do, Fitzwater said.

Partisan Divisions Blurred
On Capitol Hill, the ultimatum had the effect of blurring partisan divisions that had marked last month's debate over whether to authorize the war, a move opposed by most Democratic congressional leaders.

"The president spoke this morning for the entire country when he reiterated our insistence on an immediate withdrawal by Iraq from Kuwait and compliance with the United Nations resolutions," said House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

"I think it's good we're going to bring this to a head. . . . Now he {Saddam} has got to get out" of Kuwait, said Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio).

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), a senior member on the House Foreign Affairs panel, said Bush's action was "appropriate" and praised him for restraint as well as toughness. "He confined himself to the enforcement of the U.N. resolutions, which he ought to do," Hamilton said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) dismissed concern over face-saving gestures. Strongly supporting the president's ultimatum, Aspin said, "Saddam Hussein has already lost the war. . . . This is not the time for us to lose our nerve and compromise on the U.N. Security Council resolutions to allow Saddam to 'save face.' "

Staff writers David S. Broder, Helen Dewar, Barton Gellman and Tom Kenworthy in Washington, William Drozdiak in Paris, John M. Goshko at the United Nations and staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.