Iraq Armed Forces Kuwait

Iraq on Saturday denied allegations that it was moving troops southward and potentially threatening Kuwait. "There have been no unusual troop movements in southern Iraq," an unidentified military spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency. There have been no changes "in the normal lines used for training our forces throughout Iraq, especially in the south," he said. The statement was a response to Kuwaiti allegations Friday that Iraq was reinforcing units in the south.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein planned to invade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia this month but called off the attack when one of his top aides defected to Jordan, the defector said Sunday. Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Majid, who was head of the country's clandestine weapons program and is Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, said he attended meetings of the Cabinet and the Revolutionary Command Council in which the invasions were discussed.

By sending some of his best troops south toward the border with Kuwait, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein seems to have shattered his country's hope of having the United Nations lift the sanctions that have devastated its economy. Word of the troop movements came Friday as Iraq's top diplomat, Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, was appealing to the United Nations to lift the sanctions, which he said are responsible for growing malnutrition, inadequate medical care and widespread suffering.

The accusation was shocking, somehow more than an atrocity: "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers coming into the hospital with guns and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die." Stupefying--but true? Amid all the uncontested, horrifyingly brutal actions of the Iraqi occupation army in Kuwait, the notorious baby-incubator story stands out.

Wall Street finished 1990 with a small gain Monday, as investors closed the books on the ugliest year for stocks since the early 1980s. The Dow Jones industrial index inched up 4.45 points to 2,633.66. For the year, the Dow lost 4.3%, off 119.54 points from its 1989 close of 2,753.20. It was the first yearly loss for the Dow since 1984, when the blue chip index fell 3.7%. But the relatively minor 1990 drop masks the bear market thrill ride taken by stocks during the year.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III probably will visit the Persian Gulf area to confer with U.S. allies sometime before the Jan. 15 deadline set by the United Nations for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait, Administration officials said Monday. A senior State Department official said such a trip is a "live possibility," although no decisions have been made as yet.

Vice President Dan Quayle traveled to the most forward American positions Monday and told cheering U.S. troops that the United States is prepared to use massive force to prevent the Persian Gulf crisis from turning into another Vietnam. Quayle said President Bush still hopes that a peaceful solution is possible, but he warned the troops in Operation Desert Shield that war is ominously near.

Diplomatic Front: Secretary of State James A. Baker III probably will visit the Persian Gulf area to confer with U.S. allies sometime before the Jan. 15 deadline set by the United Nations for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait, Administration officials said. In various New Year's addresses, world leaders urged Iraq to seek peace. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said there is nothing more sacred to his people "than the preservation and renewal" of the Soviet Union.

Although not a shot has been fired in anger, Operation Desert Shield has already claimed the lives of 52 Americans in the Persian Gulf region and 34 more in two accidents outside the military theater. The 86 dead is almost four times the fatalities that the United States suffered in the invasion of Panama in 1989, but military commanders say the casualties are relatively low given the intensity of the buildup and the dangers inherent in preparing for combat.

Rakam Salim al Sabah, grand-nephew of Kuwait's exiled emir, thought the question odd but maintained his royal dignity. "Of course" he was willing to die for his country, said the 19-year-old. "Do you think Kuwaitis are any different than Americans in that regard?" Rakam, one of 1,200 Kuwaiti civilian volunteers being trained for combat in a camp of tents outside Dhahran, spoke softly in perfect English.