KUWAIT CITY, 18 March 2003 — The United States and Britain urged their citizens to leave Kuwait immediately as war loomed yesterday, citing the risk of chemical or biological attack by Iraq or by terrorists.
The warning came as UN observers stopped all patrols at the heavily fortified Iraq-Kuwait border ahead of a possible UN evacuation. Iraq demanded the United Nations stop the scale-down of its staff, accusing it of abandoning its “responsibility in maintaining world peace and security.”
The United States and Britain have nearly 300,000 troops in the Gulf, the bulk of them in Kuwait, poised for a possible invasion of Iraq.
US President George W. Bush on Sunday issued a one-day deadline for final diplomatic attempts to avert war, raising prospects that the start of fighting was just days away.
The US State Department ordered all government dependents and nonessential staff out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, citing the “deteriorating security situation in the region.”
Britain likewise was paring its embassy to a skeleton staff yesterday, and said it was closing the consular and visa sections as of today.
Both countries warned their nationals against travel to Kuwait, and urged nationals already here to get out, while commercial flights still are running.
“What we would like is for people to take that advice — as I say, the word is ‘urgently,’” a spokesman for the British Embassy said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The British Embassy was talking to British Airways about extra flights out of Kuwait, and planning charter flights as well to help evacuate the 3,000-3,500 Britons and other Commonwealth citizens, the spokesman said.
US Embassy officials indicated they were considering similar measures to aid the roughly 8,000 American civilians believed still in the country.
Kuwait’s international airport was calm early yesterday, with no extra lines at ticket offices and no sign of a Western exit from the country. Any exodus, if it comes, was expected to start with evening flights.
With Kuwait the launch pad for any attack, its airport is expected to close for civilian flights — possibly, for several days — if hostilities begin.
The British and US warnings cited the possibility of attacks not just from Iraq, but from insurgents within Kuwait.
“The threat of terrorism, which is now high and which we believe will rise further in the event of hostilities ... also could involve the risk of chemical and biological weapons,” the British Embassy spokesman said.
Any Americans remaining in Kuwait should exercise caution — avoiding crowds, keeping a low profile, and varying times and routes for any travel, the State Department said.
On Jan. 21, gunmen on a road south of Kuwait City ambushed a car carrying two American contractors for the US military, killing one man and seriously wounding the other.
The United States heightened its travel warning after that attack, and hiked it again as the last diplomatic efforts ground down.
Early Monday, the United Nations raised its security alert on the Iraq-Kuwait border, and ordered monitors and other workers there to cease operations immediately.
UN monitors on the Iraq side of the 190-kilometer border were crossing to the Kuwait side.
UN observers have been patrolling the 25-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone since shortly after the 1990-91 Gulf War. Kuwait has sealed the border with electrified fences and ditches, trying to guard against Iraqi incursions.
The UN observer mission pulled 400-500 peacekeepers from remote stretches of the border last week, saying the safety of their mission was no longer assured. Yesterday, the remaining roughly 800 were gathering, awaiting expected word later in the day on whether to pull out entirely, said Daljeet Bagga, spokesman for the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission.
The Germans and Chinese took to their heels yesterday morning. The Swiss were expected to follow as others sat on packed suitcases awaiting orders to escape.
French and Greek diplomats said they would take their cue from the inspectors.
However, Russian Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko planned to stay and even took bets on the chances of a peaceful solution to the crisis.
In Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, the US Embassy had by yesterday afternoon not advised US citizens to leave, although non-essential embassy staff had been allowed to depart last month.
Some 5,000 Americans, most of them military personnel, live in Bahrain.
