Following the expulsion of the American arms inspectors and the subsequent withdrawal of the entire U.N. team from Iraq, President Clinton sent a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. After a background report by Charles Krause, Elizabeth Farnsworth discusses the Iraq situation with National Security Adviser Samuel Berger.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The six American inspectors expelled last night from Iraq reached Jordan this morning--tired but safe after a ten-hour journey. They refused comment as they arrived at their hotel in Aaman, Jordan's capital. Meanwhile, at about the same time, 68 other non-American members of the U.N. arms inspection team were evacuated from Baghdad by plane from Bahrain. With most of the U.N. inspectors out of Iraq, President Clinton announced his decision this morning to send a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is simply--it's too dangerous an issue that would set the too powerful precedent about the impotence of the United Nations if we didn't proceed on this--in the face of what I have considered to be one or the three or four most significant security threats that all of our people will face for the next whole generation--this weapons of mass destruction proliferation. We have got to stop it.

CHARLES KRAUSE: As a result of today's decision, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington will join the USS Nimitz in what was described as a major U.S. military build-up in the Gulf. There were also reports today of stepped-up air activity over Northern Iraq by U.S. Air Force jets based in Turkey. The British, meanwhile, announced that their carrier, the HMS Invincible, had been deployed from the Caribbean to Gibraltar. But after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in London, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the U.S. still hopes to avoid the use of military force

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: I think that this is not the time to engage in speculation about military action. We are working very hard to have intense diplomacy. It is very important for us to make quite clear as the international community that it is essential for us to act together, so that Saddam Hussein gets the message that he must reverse course. And the world is making quite clear that he needs to reverse course. We are--our strategy is to combine intensive diplomacy with a robust military presence in the Gulf, which we think is the best way to convince Saddam Hussein to reverse course.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf gave no indication that Saddam Hussein had, indeed, reversed course or changed his mind.

MOHAMMED SAID AL-SAHAF: We do not seek any confrontation--in 1991--we have stood a third world war, so Iraq will stand any aggression, whatever it is.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Meanwhile in Moscow, Saddam Hussein picked up some support today when the Lower House of Russia's parliament, the Duma, approved a resolution rejecting the use of force against Iraq. This afternoon at the Pentagon Defense Secretary Cohen again emphasized that the administration would prefer a diplomatic resolution to the crisis but would use force, if necessary.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: Our purpose is not to bomb him into behavior modification as such but rather to seek to coerce compliance. We can, in fact, detect considerable things from space and from our U-2 flights in terms of monitoring what activities there are to make sure that they are in compliance, but they can't see through the rooftops. And so inspectors on the ground are ultimately what we want to get back in place. We're not looking to bomb anyone back into either a stone age or into any sort of submission, but we're seeking to emphasize the fact that we expect compliance with the resolutions.

CHARLES KRAUSE: A U-2 surveillance flight over Iraq is scheduled for the weekend.