COMBAT IN PANAMA : 1,500 POWs to Be Screened at U.S. Camps : Captives: Some in custody are believed to have close ties to Noriega.

U.S. authorities are preparing to set up prisoner of war camps where the 1,500 members of the Panama Defense Forces now in custody can be screened to determine who might help form a new Panamanian army and who might be prosecuted as drug traffickers, Administration sources said Friday.

“We are providing POW protection for each one until the precise status of each individual soldier can be ascertained,” one official said.

Among those believed to be in custody are a number of men with close ties to ousted dictator Manuel A. Noriega, four of whom have been indicted in the United States on drug charges along with Noriega, a Justice Department official added.

“Those four clearly are people we want to take custody of, and we will be interviewing others that we have outstanding cases against--people who figure in ongoing investigations,” said David Runkel, a special assistant to U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh.

The task of restructuring the PDF--including rooting out corruption--is among the foremost challenges confronting the Bush Administration. With about 14,000 members, the PDF has served not only as Panama’s army but also as its police force.

Sources familiar with the plan to set up prisoner of war camps conceded Friday that the Administration harbors few illusions about the difficulties of trying screen the Panamanian soldiers in captivity.

“This is a delicate procedure if we’re trying to restore the Panamanian government,” one Administration source said. He said the soldiers probably will break down into three categories:

“One, there may have been some good soldiers who did nothing. They will be released to the new government as soon as possible.

“Two, if the government believes some are Noriega loyalists, they may be kept for awhile.

“The third group are those who may have been involved in the drug business. We have to determine whether we want to bring them back to the U.S. for prosecution or turn them over for prosecution in Panama.”

But, the source continued, “we don’t want to run a camp for a lot of people for a prolonged period. No one wants the U.S. to be seen running a concentration camp.”

He conceded that the process could take “months and months.”

A Pentagon source said that it may not be easy for authorities to decipher a Panamanian soldier’s true sympathies. “An awful lot of people are going to claim to have seen the light. Do we believe those who claim to have seen the light? It’s going to be hard to tell who’s really trustworthy and who’s not.”

Another Administration source declared: “It’s going to be an arduous and prolonged process.”

David Isenberg, a research analyst at the Center for Defense Information here, agreed that the plan could take many weeks. Until a new PDF is reconstituted, he said, a peacekeeping force from either the United Nations or the Organization of American States might be a palatable alternative to the continued large presence of U.S. forces in Panama.

Staff writer Robert L. Jackson contributed to this story.