Russia Parliament Told It Perils Aid Package : Economy: White House adviser says $24-billion program could be curtailed if the lawmakers block Yeltsin’s reforms.

WASHINGTON —  Brent Scowcroft, White House national security adviser, indicated Sunday that the $24-billion international aid package recently announced for Russia could be curtailed if the Russian Parliament blocks the economic reforms of President Boris N. Yeltsin.

“The arrangement, however it comes out, has to be such that economic reforms can go forward. . . ,” Scowcroft asserted. “If, in fact, (the Russian) Congress gets control over economic policy, you can assume it will be less reformist, less dramatic than Yeltsin has planned. That would affect (the aid package).”

Scowcroft’s remarks appeared to be part of an international effort to remind conservative legislators in Russia of the harmful consequences that might follow from a vote to rein in Yeltsin’s economic reform program.

In Europe, John Flemming, chief economist for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said Sunday in an interview with Reuters news agency that the new political crisis in Moscow “obviously puts a question mark over (the $24-billion aid package).”

On April 1, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Bush unveiled a $24-billion program aimed at strengthening Russia’s economy, stabilizing the ruble and providing support for the country’s transition to a free-market economy.

But on Saturday, the Russian Parliament cast doubt on the future of these reforms by voting to limit Yeltsin’s tenure as the country’s prime minister to a further three months and to revoke his powers to rule by decree as president once a new government is installed.

On Sunday, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Scowcroft said that one of the prime factors underlying the Bush Administration’s willingness to support the aid package had been an agreement between Yeltsin’s government and the International Monetary Fund on economic reforms in Russia. It was this IMF agreement that made the $24-billion program “a reasonable proposition,” he said.

“We have to be very careful that we don’t pour large amounts of money into a system where there’s no expectation that it will be used profitably,” the national security adviser said. “That (Russia) is a very large economy. Unreformed, it can absorb unbelievable amounts of money with no change, which it’s done in part already.”

Scowcroft was careful to link the international aid package to the general fate of economic reforms in Russia, rather than merely to Yeltsin’s personal future. When asked whether aid to Russia would be in jeopardy if Yeltsin lost political control over the economic reform package to someone else, Scowcroft replied: “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

When the aid program for Russia was announced, Bush Administration officials refused to make any estimates of how much it would cost the United States. Independent estimates put the figure at about $5 billion.

On Sunday, Scowcroft gave a lower estimate, insisting that the amount that will be contributed by the United States “could be, depending on how this all works out, as much as $3 billion.”

He maintained that the vote Saturday by Russia’s Congress of People’s Deputies does not necessarily mean the end of Yeltsin’s economic reform program.

“I’d say it’s not over. . . ,” Scowcroft said. “This is a conservative body . . . and I think Yeltsin has done reasonably well. . . . I don’t think it’s quite that cataclysmic.”

The national security adviser also said on the interview program that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is making “ominous preparations” in northern Iraq, including the installation of some surface-to-air missiles in areas where they are prohibited.

As he and other Bush Administration officials have in the past, Scowcroft left open the possibility of new military action against Iraq. “I wouldn’t rule anything out,” he said.

Asked what he would tell the women and children of Iraq who are having difficulty getting food and medicine, Scowcroft replied:

“I think they ought to tell their mothers and daddies to get rid of him (Hussein). . . . We are not keeping any food, medicine, any of those things from the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein is. He’s stockpiling it in different places, he’s distributing it only to his friends. That’s the problem.”