US FORCES were on high alert yesterday for possible action in northern Iraq as the White House waited for Baghdad to honour its pledge to withdraw its troops from the Kurdish stronghold of Arbil.
President Clinton made an unscheduled stop during his weekend post convention campaign swing by bus through west Tennessee to denounce Iraq's storming of the Kurdish city as a matter of "grave concern".
"Today I have placed our forces in the region on high alert and they are being reinforced," said Mr Clinton, who yesterday campaigned in Little Rock, in his home state of Arkansas.
Baghdad later announced it would withdraw its troops from the region, but the White House remained sceptical and said it was waiting for proof. White House spokesman Mr Mike McCurry, in Memphis with Mr Clinton, said: "Given the provocations of Iraq, we don't put a lot of credibility in this. It's not what they say, it's what they do."
Mr McCurry was responding to comments by Iraq's deputy ambassador to the UN, Mr Saeed Hasan, who said Iraqi troops would soon be withdrawn.
Mr Clinton told a crowd in Troy, Tennessee, that Iraqi forces had overrun Arbil, in a part of northern Iraq controlled and populated by the Kurds, but that the situation was unclear, with reports of heavy fighting in populated areas. He added that there were indications that Kurdish factions might be involved in the operations with Iraq.
The White House chief of staff, Mr Leon Panetta, said on NBC television's Meet the Press: "There will be a response. Saddam Hussein continues to remain a threat to his own people and to the region and we have made it clear that this is unacceptable. We have warned him that if he took that kind of action there will be consequences.
Mr Panetta said that even if one of the Kurdish factions had invited Iraqi troops to intervene, the move by President Saddam was not justified.
In Washington, Republican presidential candidate Mr Bob Dole criticised UN Security Council resolution 986, yet to be implemented, which would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion of oil over six months to buy food and medicine for its population.
The latest developments, Mr Dole said, "reinforce my belief that the move to relax sanctions on the sale of Iraqi oil was premature and ill advised and should not be implemented."
Mr Dole's comments prompted an angry response from Mr McCurry. "We would strongly dispute the notion that the action was ill advised," he said. "These were tightly structured sales for humanitarian relief."
US military flights to enforce no fly zones in both northern and southern Iraq doubled over the weekend. A senior administration official said Iraq had not violated an allied no fly zone established to protect the Kurds.
US plans rely heavily on air power to deter any advances by Baghdad, but there are also 23,000 US troops in the area.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, cut short a California vacation and returned to Washington on Saturday. He was reported to be consulting US allies in the region about a united response. However, a senior administration official played down prospects of an imminent US military response to Iraqi defiance of Washington.