NATO Should Do More to Help Gulf Effort, Its Top Official Says

BRUSSELS —  Manfred Woerner, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, declared Thursday that the alliance could play a wider role in areas of conflict that affect vital Western interests such as the present Persian Gulf crisis.

It was the first time that Woerner had put on record his “personal opinion” that NATO could and should do more to support the U.S.-led multinational force in Saudi Arabia.

Woerner spoke out at a top-level NATO seminar called to examine the role of the 40-year-old alliance in the aftermath of the Cold War and the end of the threat of a massive Soviet ground attack in Europe.

He acknowledged that in the United States and elsewhere, critics have complained that more of the 16 NATO countries should contribute troops and financial support for the forces deployed to counter the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

The NATO treaty prohibits the use of force beyond the territory of member countries. Individual governments are free to act as they wish in support of one another.

“Nobody thinks NATO must respond to all global challenges,” Woerner said, but when “vital Western interests” are at stake “can we afford to be limited to consultations?”

He argued that NATO members should share the burden of providing military and economic support in an equitable fashion.

There is no question, he said, that Persian Gulf oil is essential to NATO members. And he said the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait represents a moral, military and economic challenge that must be met.

The price of “allowing Iraq to escape with impunity will be paid, sooner or later,” he said.

In supporting U.N. sanctions against Iraq, he said, the alliance was acting within the provisions of its charter.

William H. Taft IV, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told the assembly: “There is considerable disappointment in the U.S. with the original contribution of the allies, the scale and importance of their effort . . . but in the last couple of days, the allies came to the same conclusion.”

Taft pointed out that U.S. public opinion does not often make a distinction between the alliance and its member countries and that as separate entities they could support U.S. policy in the gulf if they chose to do so.