Bush Condemns Hussein Amid Confusing Signals

WASHINGTON â€”  Bush Administration policy-makers are intensely studying a rash of confusing signals from occupied Kuwait that could indicate an Iraqi plan to withdraw from part of the country, officials said Monday.

At the same time, however, Bush and his senior aides continue to issue bellicose warnings about Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait--warnings that one official said are part of a deliberate campaign to prepare the American people for the possibility of military action against Iraqi forces.

Bush, campaigning in Texas, for the first time explicitly compared Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and, also for the first time, publicly raised the possibility of a war crimes trial for the Iraqi leader’s “ghastly atrocities� against the Kuwaiti people.

“The story of two young kids passing out leaflets: Iraqi troops rounded up their parents and made them watch while those two kids were shot to death--executed before their eyes,� Bush said as he listed the “horrible tales� of Iraq’s actions in Kuwait.

“Hitler revisited,� he declared.

The strong rhetoric, U.S. officials say, is part of an effort to keep international pressure focused on Iraq at a time when events elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, threaten to create dissension within the anti-Iraq alliance.

Even more dissension would be likely if Iraq did withdraw from parts of Kuwait, officials fear. And new signs indicating that may be a possibility have prompted considerable discussion within the Administration.

“There are two schools of thought here,� one Administration official said. “One, that Saddam Hussein is trying to find a way out; the other, that he is simply trying to divide everybody� by pretending to be willing to withdraw. The tactic is one Hussein used frequently during the Iran-Iraq War.

“It could be something. We don’t know,� the official said.

Earlier this fall, some U.S. analysts, pointing to the massive looting of Kuwait, had suggested that Hussein was planning to strip the country first, then pull out of most of it. Iraq’s chief interests in Kuwait, the analysts noted, are a large oil field straddling the border between the two nations and two Kuwaiti islands, Warba and Bubiyan, that command the approaches to Iraq’s only Persian Gulf port.

Iraqi denials of any willingness to withdraw from any part of Kuwait had quieted such speculation. But the possibility is now being taken seriously once more because of more recent signals, ranging from movements of border signposts by Iraqi troops to statements by a ranking Soviet official after a visit to Baghdad that Hussein had indicated a willingness to withdraw from much of Kuwait.

In Saudi Arabia, the wife of the Kuwaiti planning minister, who recently left Kuwait, reported that Iraq is fencing off the northern third of the country--an area that includes the oil field and the disputed islands.

“The Iraqis are setting up a wire fence across Kuwait. They apparently plan to gulp up Bubiyan and the northeastern oil field,� said Fatima Hussein, who fled her occupied country last week. She is the wife of Planning Minister Salman Abdul-Razek Mutawa.

At the same time, a senior member of the Saudi royal family confirmed that intelligence reports indicate Iraqi troops may be building reinforced positions in northern Kuwait south of the disputed islands and the Rumaila oil field.

And a member of Kuwait’s ruling Sabah family said he has received reports that Iraqi troops are putting up concrete barriers along the Mutla Ridge, a range of low mountains that separates northern Kuwait from the more populated areas around Kuwait city.

Kuwaiti officials at the government-in-exile in Saudi Arabia are clearly alarmed about the possibility of what, for many of them, has been a nightmare scenario: a partial Iraqi pullout that likely would cause fatal leaks in the international alliance against Iraq.

Nations now willing to confront Iraq for the liberation of Kuwait would be far less likely to do so over a mere border dispute between the two nations, they fear.

“We would become just another international conflict,� one member of the Sabah family said. “Another Palestine. Another Lebanon.�

Indeed, many officials say that--had Hussein seized only part of Kuwait in the first place--the international campaign against him never would have gotten off the ground. After a brief period of protest, “we would have jumped quickly there and mediated and kissed each other,� one senior Arab diplomat said.

The Kuwaitis, along with some Saudi and U.S. officials, fear that Hussein may now try to pull back, hoping to hold onto much of what he truly wanted in the first place while avoiding a war that would probably end his regime.

Other officials are far more skeptical, however.

“I don’t believe Iraq now has any thinking of withdrawing from Kuwait,� one Saudi official said. “There is no sign at all that that is Hussein’s intention. The Iraqi officials still say they don’t want to leave Kuwait, that there is no Kuwait. Something like that doesn’t mean peaceful intentions.�

Administration officials say Bush would oppose settling for a partial withdrawal from Kuwait but would have to defer to whatever decision the Kuwaitis made on the issue. Any such compromise, U.S. officials fear, would be seen in the Middle East as a victory for Hussein.

“It’s certainly better to use the military option than it is to compromise your objectives,� one senior U.S. official said. “Do I think it is better to use the military option than realize the existing objectives diplomatically? No. Is it better to use the military option than having Saddam Hussein sit in Kuwait forever? Yes. . . .�

The official said “everyone is pretty sober� about the possibility of war although he added, “People realize that it’s potentially costly, but it’s a serious option.�

Bush, meanwhile, stepped up his condemnation of Hussein. In Texas, where he campaigned for Clayton Williams, the Republican candidate for governor, Bush denounced Hussein’s “systematic assault on the soul of a nation.�

Reiterating reports delivered last month, when he was visited at the White House by the Kuwaiti emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, Bush told of infants removed from incubators and dialysis patients taken from kidney machines so that the equipment could be shipped to Iraq.

“Remember--when Hitler’s war ended, there were the Nuremberg trials,� Bush said, referring to the war crimes trials that followed World War II. Administration officials have privately been investigating the possibility of such trials since August.

Staff writers Kim Murphy in Saudi Arabia, Jack Nelson and Robin Wright in Washington and James Gerstenzang, traveling with President Bush in Texas, contributed to this report.