U.N. Pulls Aid Workers Out Of Iraq

Return to Showdown in the Gulf

The U.S. has set no deadline for action, President Clinton said Thursday morning, but he has asked Vice President Al Gore to put off a trip to South Africa next week.

CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that the U.N. staff in Iraq, representing 25 nationalities, boarded a white bus around dawn on a trip UN officials said would take them to the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Two other staff members were headed for northern Kurdish areas of Iraq, which are not expected to be targeted in any US air strikes. The UN humanitarian coordinator, Denis Halliday, said another 30 of his team of 200 would leave Baghdad Friday.

The departures come as Iraq prepares for an 11th-hour diplomatic visit by U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and as a first planeload of the expected 6,000 U.S. Army armored and helicopter troops landed at Kuwait International Airport Thursday. Both Annan's visit and the troop buildup are meant to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to give U.N. weapons inspectors unlimited access to eight presidential sites.

Pinkston reports the U.N. humanitarian workers who left Baghdad operated the oil-for-food program that provides valuable aid for a country whose economy is collapsing under U.N. sanctions. He said they have received some recent threats as tensions in Iraq have mounted.

"We know we are at a very critical stage and we're just taking precautions," said Halliday.

Pinkston reports that the order to move personnel out of Iraq came from U.N. headquarters in New York.

Annan himself says his latest visit is difficult, coming at a "very critical juncture." And the secretary-general has clear warnings from the U. S. and Britain that they will reject any arrangement that falls short of full, unfettered access for weapons inspectors.

Baghdad has blocked inspectors from entering at least eight so-called presidential sites. The U.S. and Britain are threatening military action if diplomacy fails.

To provide muscle for that military action, U.S. troop reinforcements began arriving in Kuwait Thursday to bolster troops already stationed in the Gulf.

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen has said the troops were being sent to defend Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the event of an Iraqi attack. U.S. special forces train regularly in Kuwait and are believed to be among some 1,500 troops currently in the country for almost year-long exercises.

In other developments:

• Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is pitching the U.S. position against Iraq Thursday in back-to-back appearances at Tennessee State University and the University of South Carolina.

  She'll be facing smaller audiences than the one yesterday at Ohio State University. Angry protesters there continually interrupted Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. President Clinton insisted Wednesday night that the U.S. resolve to curtail Iraq's ability to use weapons of mass destruction remains firm.

• A powerful bomb explosion caused heavy damage at a U.S. car dealership building on the outskirts of Athens early Thursday. Police have said they believe it was a protest against Washington's plans to attack Iraq. Nobody was injured in the blast.
• Saddam Hussein has met Russian envoy Viktor Posuvalyuk, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) said Thursday. It said Posuvalyuk handed Saddam a letter from Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Iraq's stand-off with the United Nations and Annan's mission. Russia has said it is hopeful Annan's visit will avert military action.

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