Five U.S. diplomats from Kuwait today abandoned their besieged embassy and flew to Baghdad to join a last batch of Americans leaving Iraq and the occupied emirate aboard a U.S.-chartered Iraqi jet. Officials said the diplomats and 25 other Americans aboard the Boeing 707 that landed in Baghdad would be among 94 foreigners leaving in the afternoon on an Iraqi Airways flight to Frankfurt, Germany, in what was said to be the last charter plane carrying out foreign nationals. U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Howell, Barbara Bodine, the deputy chief of mission in Kuwait, and three other American diplomats from Kuwait were whisked through the departure lounge and made no comment in Baghdad. ``They are in good spirits and good shape and ready to get back to the States,'' and American embassy official said on condition of anonymity. But while Iraq was allowing the completion of a blanket hostage release announced one week ago, it remained at odds with Washington over when Secretary of State James A. Baker III can visit Baghdad for talks on preventing war. On Wednesday, the Bush administration accused President Saddam Hussein of blocking any agreement. The administration says Iraq's insistence on a Jan. 12 date for the visit is too close to the Jan. 15 deadline a U.N. resolution has set for Iraq to relinquish Kuwait or face possible attack. There is no disagreement over Iraq's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, meeting with President Bush in Washington on Monday, but the United States says it will not receive him unless a date has been set for Baker's visit. The Bush administration has suggested any time between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3. Also today, Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid left Baghdad for Iran after beginning a new Arab peace mission the day before during talks with Saddam. Among those waiting at the Baghdad airport for today's flight to Frankfurt were three families who missed a Tuesday flight because the Kuwaiti wives of Americans had to obtain Iraqi passports, officials said. The embassy had no estimate on the number of Americans or other passengers who would fly out of the country today on the Frankfurt-bound charter. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington on Wednesday that 15 Americans would be aboard the flight. Officials in Baghdad said that all others who wished to leave Kuwait and Iraq would do so by regular flights or by ground transportation. In other last-stage charter flights, 78 Japanese arrived in Tokyo Wednesday and 313 mostly British passengers landed in London on a chartered Iraqi Airways jet from Baghdad. Iraq had barred thousands of foreigners from travel after its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. It held hundreds of them - mostly Americans, Britons and Japanese - at strategic sites to deter a feared attack by U.S.-led forces sent to the region in response to the invasion. About 188 Americans have been evacuated from Iraq and Kuwait over the last week. They include 70 people who were in hiding, 86 men kept as ``human shields'' and 32 private citizens who had found refuge in U.S. compounds. U.S. officials estimate that about 500 Americans - most of them children with dual citizenship - are remaining. Howell and his colleagues at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait defied Iraqi orders to close in August. Gradually, all but the British and Americans removed their diplomats as Iraq cut off utilities and posted soldiers outside the compounds. Britain has joined the United States in deciding to remove its remaining diplomats now that the last of both countries' citizens are leaving Kuwait. Britain says its embassy staff will leave in the next week. On Nov. 30, a day after the U.N. Security Council passed the use-of-force resolution, Bush proposed the diplomatic exchange as a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Iraq accepted the idea, but Boucher complained Wednesday that Baghdad ``continued to block agreement on dates.'' Said the State Department spokesman: `We have offered 15 dates and Iraq has offered none.'' He said Baker is ``willing to go to Baghdad for a meeting on any one of the 15 days between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3 because we think these meetings are important and because we are serious about them.''
