Rough Seas and New Names

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr.

Kuwaiti oil tankers once known as the exotic-sounding Al Rekkah and Casbah will soon be traversing the Persian Gulf bearing such familiar American names as Sea Isle City and Ocean City. But more than just the names will have changed. Under the plan President Reagan announced in the wake of Iraq's inadvertent attack on the U.S.S. Stark, eleven Kuwaiti tankers are scheduled to begin sailing under the Stars and Stripes next week. They will be captained by American skippers and escorted by American warships as they ply the world's most treacherous waterway.

At the moment, the plan has hit even rougher waters at home from those who think a challenge is being thrown to Iran without full consideration of the risks. A broad array of critics has come out opposed. Henry Kissinger, despite his sensitivities to Soviet aggrandizement, warned of the implications of a U.S. tilt toward Iraq in its 6 1/2-year war with Iran. Jeane Kirkpatrick advised the Administration to go slow. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, called Reagan's plan "half baked, poorly developed." Said his Republican counterpart, Bob Dole of Kansas: "I don't think anyone knows quite what the policy is." Even ultraconservative Republican Senator Jesse Helms remarked that Congress needed "more answers" from the Administration before approving the reflagging plan.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was on the brink of voting on a bill that would halt the reflagging. But after a lengthy conference with Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, the panel decided to delay the vote until this week. "We need a few more days to think about it," said Chairman Claiborne Pell, a Rhode Island Democrat.

The Administration was grateful for the reprieve. "Congress blinked," sighed a senior Pentagon official. "But the question is for how long." Reagan made it clear that he was certainly not going to blink. "We will accept our responsibility for these vessels in the face of threats by Iran or anyone else," he insisted in a televised address last week. "If we don't do the job, the Soviets will."

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger tried to mollify Congress with a 26- page report explaining the Navy's new rules of engagement in the gulf. Warships are now operating under "hair-trigger" alert, prepared to fire on any plane or vessel that approaches in a hostile manner. Under these rules, the Iraqi jet that zeroed in on the Stark would have been blown out of the sky before it could launch its missiles. He assured worried Congressmen that the threat to U.S. vessels was, as the report put it, "low to moderate."

The CIA, however, gave a more disturbing assessment, calling the threat of some Iranian response "quite high." This prompted House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin to complain that the Administration clearly had not figured out what it was getting into. There are suspicions that Iran has set up mines in the waters of Kuwait's primary oil port at Al-Ahmadi. Should a ship hit one of them, said Aspin, it would be "something on which there are no Iranian fingerprints." Thus the U.S. would be less able to retaliate. Another threat is the Chinese-made Silkworm missiles that Iran is deploying along the Strait of Hormuz. They have a range of about 50 miles, enough to cover the entire strait, and carry a 1,000-lb. warhead, three times as heavy as the warhead of the Exocet that hit the Stark.

Providing proper air cover remains a problem. The aircraft carrier Constellation is patrolling just outside the gulf, but a plane taking off from its deck would have to travel 600 miles to reach the Kuwaiti harbor at the northern end of the waterway. That would require in-flight refueling and make an attack trickier. The U.S. has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia to provide landing rights to U.S. aircraft, but so far little progress has been made. Last month the Administration hoped to persuade the Saudis to agree by selling them 1,600 Maverick antitank missiles. But when Reagan attempted to push through the deal by giving Congress only last-minute notification, the lawmakers were outraged. The Administration quickly withdrew the plan for the sale before Congress could block it.

The reflagging plan will weaken any remaining American pretense of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war; Kuwait is a staunch supporter of Iraq. There were faint hopes last week that Syria, which is Iran's only important ally in the Arab world, might change its allegiance. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have been struggling to ease the bitter rivalry between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Syrian President Hafez Assad. However, no agreement has yet been forged.

The U.S. has already begun beefing up its presence in the gulf by sending a destroyer and two frigates to join the six Navy ships already there. Registry of the Kuwaiti vessels has been transferred to the Chesapeake Shipping Co. of Dover, Del. Hence, when the Kuwaitis decided to change the Arabic names of the ships, they opened an atlas and picked the names of seaside towns in the Delaware Bay area.

In the meantime, the U.S. continued to grapple with the incident that sparked the new policy. The crew of the Stark, the House Armed Services Committee has concluded, failed to react promptly to the Iraqi jet. Last week the ship's skipper, Captain Glenn Brindel -- who had left the bridge to go to the lavatory and was in his private quarters when the vessel was hit -- was removed from duty, as were two subordinate officers. The military board that investigated the tragedy has reportedly recommended that Brindel be court- martialed for negligence.

With reporting by Hays Gorey and Bruce van Voorst/Washington