U. S. to Airdrop Food, Supplies to Kurdish Refugees, Bush Says

The United States will begin airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq and will dispatch Secretary of State James A. Baker III to the Middle East to discuss the plight of the refugees and prospects for Arab-Israeli peace talks, President Bush announced Friday.

The effort comes after a week of steadily mounting criticism accusing Bush of passivity in the face of the huge refugee disaster that has followed the success of the U. S.-led war against Iraq.

The refugee crisis “demands immediate action on a massive scale,” Bush said in a statement announcing the airdrops which, beginning today, will send surplus military food, blankets, tents and other relief supplies to the thousands of refugees fleeing the Iraqi army.

“It’s heartbreaking when you see these families on the road, pushed out by a brutal dictator,” Bush told reporters at the beginning of a meeting with a group of Latino business leaders in Newport Beach, Calif. “We will do what we can to help there without being bogged down into a ground action in Iraq.”

Meanwhile, in New York, the U. N. Security Council overwhelmingly condemned Iraq’s repression of the Kurds and demanded an end to atrocities.

The Security Council approved the resolution by a 10-3 vote, with opposition from Cuba, Yemen and Zimbabwe. China and India abstained.

Supporters of the resolution were the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, the Soviet Union, Austria, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Romania and Zaire.

U. N. officials said they could not recall a similar condemnation of a nation’s domestic behavior. The U. N. Charter says that only a threat to international peace and security can justify action by the Security Council.

The council chose to consider the exodus of refugees--and reported border violations by Iraq--as a threat to international peace and security, not an internal matter.

The resolution was enacted at the urging of France, as well as Turkey and Iran, which are receiving Kurdish refugees fleeing the onslaught of Iraq’s army.

The resolution “condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, the consequences of which threaten international peace and security in the region.”

It demands that Iraq “immediately end this repression,” and expresses hope “that an open dialogue will take place to ensure that the human and political rights of all Iraqi citizens are respected.”

In addition to the U. S. airdrops to the Kurds, the Administration announced donations of $10 million for refugee relief plus $1 million to the Red Cross and the U. N. International Children’s Emergency Fund for food and immunizations inside Iraq.

A U. S. military medical unit will also be deployed to the Turkish-Iraqi border region “to meet emergency medical needs,” Bush said in his statement. Later, however, Bush insisted that he will not alter his decision against any U. S. military action to prevent the Iraqi attacks on Kurds.

“We’ve fulfilled our objectives” in the area, Bush said. “I have no intention of putting American troops into this situation.”

Administration officials said they had no commitment from Iraq to allow the airdrops to take place but urged Iraqi authorities “to permit this effort to be carried out without any interference.” The airdrops will be performed by military aircraft, probably under escort by Air Force fighters, which continue to fly patrols over Iraqi territory.

Baker’s trip will take him first to Turkey, where he is expected to visit the border area, and then to Israel, Egypt and perhaps other nations in the region. It is his second trip to the region since the end of the Gulf War and follows a visit to Saudi Arabia by Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

Bush has been hoping to be able to show enough progress toward an Arab-Israeli peace to justify a trip of his own, and he told reporters in Newport Beach that he has “reason to be hopeful” about Baker’s mission. But he quickly added: “I don’t think we’re at the verge of having some deal.”

Baker will confer with Bush in Houston, the next stop in the President’s trip, sometime over the weekend, White House officials said.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Baker will “see if we can bring the parties closer together.” Bush and Baker, she said, saw a second visit to the region as an important step to “take advantage of the window of opportunity that all believe exists.”

Baker is also expected to push efforts to cope with the massive new refugee crisis. According to State Department figures, at least 100,000 refugees fleeing Iraq’s Kurdish regions have already entered Turkey and 45,000 have crossed the border into northern Iran. U. N. officials estimate that 10,000 Kurds are entering Iran each day. Hundreds of thousands more remain on the Iraqi side of both the Iranian and Turkish borders, struggling across rugged mountain territory as they try to escape Iraqi attacks.

In Geneva, the U. N. Disaster Relief Office (UNDRO) made a public plea for $137 million to meet the immediate food and shelter needs of the Kurdish refugees. The group said it assumes it will need to help 400,000 refugees in Iran and Turkey.

Iran has allowed the refugees to cross the border, but the Turkish government has been reluctant to allow massive numbers of Kurds to enter, in part for fear of arousing Kurdish separatist feelings within Turkey.

In addition, Pentagon officials estimate that up to 1,000 people a day continue to pour into U. S.-held territory in southern Iraq, where refugee camps, including some in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, already hold thousands.

The Administration has been hoping that international relief agencies can take responsibility for the refugees as U. S. troops withdraw for the region. Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton is in Geneva, where Red Cross and U. N. humanitarian organizations have their headquarters, to discuss that issue.

In addition to the U. S. aid, European nations and relief groups also began sending food, clothing and other material to help the Kurds, as private relief officials predicted it would be a tough task to reach large numbers of refugees in the area’s mountainous terrain.

A cargo plane carrying 30 tons of blankets and tents left Britain on Friday en route to Ankara, Turkey, and the Germans said they would send four planes this weekend. The French also plan to send supplies.

The Swedes and British, who plan to continue to send planes, have jointly pledged $36.3 million.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and several U. N. organizations have begun laying plans to provide emergency medical care and other material, but officials acknowledge that these efforts have only recently begun.

The Red Cross, for example, has dispatched representatives to assess the Kurds’ needs and sent four emergency medical units, each with a doctor, two nurses and an administrator, to Iran near the Iraqi border. But it may be days before substantial numbers of relief workers from the Red Cross, Red Crescent, UNDRO and other groups will arrive.