PRESIDENT Clinton said yesterday he was sending more troops to Kuwait and told legislators the United States would strike Iraq if it did not comply with US demands.
Mr Clinton met leading senators from both parties at the White House amid Republican criticism that he had failed to keep the Gulf War coalition together and had not acted strongly enough against President Saddam Hussein.
Mr Clinton defended the US response as designed "to improve the strategic position of the United States and our allies to keep Saddam Hussein in a box and to limit his ability to threaten his neighbours. That is a smaller box now because we have extended the no fly zone".
He added that the US has "put Saddam Hussein on notice that we do not want him to take any action that would increase the dangers to our pilots".
The president signed orders on Monday night to send some 3,500 US troops from Fort Hood, Texas, to join about 1,200 troops that have been in Kuwait since August.
The troops would be leaving over the next couple of days, a Pentagon spokesman said, adding that the situation on the ground in Iraq was quiet.
Kuwait belatedly agreed on Monday to accept the troops but the administration appeared to have reconsidered in the light of Iraqi statements that Baghdad would not fire on allied aircraft or reconstitute air defences in the south.
But Mr Clinton insisted. "There was never any back and forth to the best of my knowledge.
After the White House meeting, Senator John McCain, a Republican, criticised the administration's handling of the crisis and questioned how meaningful sending several thousand troops to Kuwait was
Senator Joseph Lieberman, A Democrat, described Mr Clinton as "very resolute", adding that if the Iraqis did not respond to US demands spelled out in a diplomatic note "they can expect to be hit again" and to be "hit disproportionately".
The diplomatic note dealt with the location and condition of surface to air missile sites in southern Iraq, which were aimed at in US cruise missile strikes on September 3rd and 4th, he said.
"There is very much an ongoing situation in which the administration has stated a policy of containment, set some ground rules and communicated them to Saddam and if he doesn't respond, he'll pay," Mr Lieberman said.
Baghdad yesterday accused the US of preparing an assault on Iraq after Washington ordered another 3,000 US troops to Kuwait."The American pretexts cited for concentrating troops and military materiel in the Gulf area are aimed at preparing an assault against Iraq," the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tareq Aziz, was quoted by the Iraqi news agency INA as saying.
The Kurdish leader, Mr Massoud Barzani, is to meet Mr Robert Pelletreau, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, in Turkey just days after his fighters took control of north Iraq with the backing of Baghdad troops, an Iraqi opposition group said yesterday in Ankara.