Kuwait Defense

Secretary of State James A. Baker III on Sunday defended himself and his department from congressional accusations that last July, they had led Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to believe that the United States would adopt a hands-off posture toward an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Israel condemned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as a "naked act of aggression" Thursday and warned that if Iraqi troops entered Jordan, Israel would consider it an act of war and react accordingly. But otherwise, Israeli leaders took a serious but measured view of the latest round of war in the Middle East. And the nation remained calm.

After an intense lobbying campaign by the Bush Administration, Kuwait has agreed to buy 236 advanced tanks from the United States in a $4-billion deal, Pentagon officials said Monday. The decision, announced in Kuwait Sunday, is a blow to Britain. Its Challenger 2 was the chief competitor of the American Abrams M1A2 main battle tank, and British officials expressed indignation at loss of the contract, blaming election-year pressure by the Administration.

Kuwait's new air-raid sirens screamed, and a squadron of American attack helicopters roared overhead as 1,900 U.S. Marines hit the beach near Kuwait city Tuesday morning in the first of three major military exercises clearly meant as Washington's answer to continuing Iraqi defiance to cease-fire terms. The mock assault force of Operation Eager Mace, the largest joint U.S.

Two U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton are missing after their military reconnaissance plane went down in action against Iraqi targets near Kuwait, defense officials said Saturday. Lt. Col. Clifford Acree, 39, and Chief Warrant Officer Guy Hunter, 46, formed the two-man crew of the Marine OV-10 Bronco, a turboprop plane used for observation in support of other aircraft. The two are the first Southern California-based members of the Operation Desert Storm forces to be listed as missing in action.

As the last U.S. troops pack up to leave Iraq by the end of next month, Pentagon officials and senior military commanders are warning that Iran will rush to fill a power vacuum created by the American exit unless Washington limits its pullback from the region. That broad assessment has taken on urgency in recent weeks against a backdrop of new intelligence that indicates the government in Tehran also is aggressively courting proxy forces in Yemen and, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors, is fast approaching the capability to build nuclear weapons.

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.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak plunged into emergency diplomacy Tuesday to bridge the noisy rift between Iraq and Kuwait, as the Pentagon announced "short-notice" naval maneuvers for U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

Senior defense officials, responding to Saddam Hussein's new cease-fire proposal, warned Friday that any Iraqi troops participating in a withdrawal from Kuwait would have to leave their tanks, vehicles and weapons behind or be subject to continued allied attack. The stern terms outlined by U.S.

The United States removed the Marine guards from its embassy in Kuwait on Thursday and evacuated more than 100 consular officials and dependents, but in an act of defiance left behind its ambassador and a skeleton staff to await today's deadline imposed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.