U.S. Envoy Awaiting Face-Off; Plans Prepared to Strike Iraq : Gulf crisis: Ambassador and skeleton staff left behind in Kuwait to await today’s deadline imposed by Hussein.

The United States removed the Marine guards from its embassy in Kuwait on Thursday and evacuated more than 100 consular officials and dependents, but in an act of defiance left behind its ambassador and a skeleton staff to await today’s deadline imposed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

In the face of an Iraqi warning that failure to close would be an “an act of aggression,” the State Department vowed anew to keep the embassy open and cautioned grimly that the Middle East standoff was approaching “a difficult and dangerous situation.”

U.S. officials said it was not clear from Iraqi statements whether the deadline would fall at noon or midnight local time (2 a.m. or 2 p.m. today PDT).

Bracing for the earliest possible crackdown, the Administration ordered the withdrawal of the eight-man Marine guard force to minimize the chance of provocation for the tens of thousands of Iraqi forces who now control Kuwait.

While refusing to discuss U.S. contingency plans, the officials left little doubt that a forcible Iraqi takeover of the embassy could prompt a massive American military response.

“I think it would be a mistake for Saddam Hussein to try to close down all those embassies in Kuwait,” Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said. “But he’s done foolish things before.”

As tensions mounted, the White House warned that “things are changing very rapidly.” Officials said they simply could not predict how Iraq would react to the rejection of the shutdown order.

But there was a growing sense among White House and State Department officials Thursday night that Iraqi forces might surround the embassy and declare it closed but not move against the diplomats and other Americans who have taken refuge in the compound.

Such a response could mark the beginning of a prolonged siege but might stop short of shattering the fragile stalemate in the 3-week-old Persian Gulf crisis.

Hussein has declared that the embassies must close because Kuwait is now part of Iraq and does not warrant separate diplomatic status. The United States and more than a dozen other nations, citing the United Nations’ rejection of the annexation, have refused to comply.

A State Department official involved in the affair said the embassy has sufficient food and other supplies to hold out for several weeks. But if the Iraqis were to cut off electricity and water, “then we’d be in trouble,” the official said.

The remaining diplomats in Kuwait represent a contingent greatly diminished Thursday morning by an international exodus of hundreds of officials and their dependents into Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Howell III accompanied the 30-car convoy of departing Americans to the Iraqi border and then, as they drove on to Baghdad and guarantees of safety, returned to the embassy and the impending deadline.

The holdout diplomats were expected to spend the intervening hours shredding classified material in the embassy and making preparations to destroy sensitive encryption equipment to avoid a repeat of the intelligence disaster that followed the overrunning of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said there had been reports of “military around” the embassy, and another Administration source said there were indications that Iraqi forces were surveying the compound in advance of some military action.

But the source said the evidence was somewhat ambiguous, and Fitzwater cautioned that “there is so much military in Kuwait city, it’s a little hard to determine whether it’s just general activity or whether it’s more focused on the embassy.”

In deciding to leave the compound without Marine protection, officials said, the United States recognized that the facility could not be defended against a determined Iraqi attack and feared that the presence of American soldiers might prove suicidal.

“It’s not as if we’re setting up for Custer’s last stand,” said an official involved in managing the crisis. “It’s the principle, not the property, we’re protecting.”

Emphasizing that the holdout diplomats were “not sitting around with guns,” the official said: “If they storm the embassy, that’s that.”

But with Pentagon officials sharply escalating threats of war Thursday, analysts said it appeared increasingly likely that an Iraqi move against the now-defenseless embassy could thrust the crisis into conflict.

“I’ve got to believe that this episode will be, if not the event that precipitates conflict, one of the events that precipitates conflict,” said Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who now heads the Center for Security Policy.

Asked about the impending deadline, Administration officials steered a cautious line, refusing to answer repeated questions about what the United States might do if Iraq used force to close the facility.

“We aren’t going to comment on hypothetical situations or what might happen in any operational setting,” White House spokesman Fitzwater said, adding: “We are not going to be pinned down onto specific instructions and any kinds of pronouncements that might cause problems or constitute threats.”

“It’s a difficult and dangerous situation,” said Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, “but I’m not going to speculate on what might happen.”

The uncertainty in Washington was compounded by what officials say have been conflicting messages from Iraq on whether diplomatic recognition expires at noon today or midnight. “We have heard both,” Boucher said.

In keeping the embassy open, Administration officials hope to preserve a network that provides the last thread of official contact with an estimated 2,500 Americans trapped in Iraqi-held Kuwait.

The State Department on Thursday revised upward its estimate of the U.S. citizens in Iraqi custody, saying the number now stood at 56. Forty-one were from Iraq, 15 from Kuwait. About 35 of the Americans were brought under guard this week to a chemical factory in Al Qaim, apparently as a deterrent to a U.S. attack, according to eyewitness accounts by Polish workers.

More than a dozen nations in addition to the United States indicated they would keep their embassies in Kuwait open, but it was unclear how many diplomats would stay behind. Britain, France, Canada and Denmark all indicated that personnel would remain in Kuwait.

But many ambassadors and foreign ministers from other countries joined in the exodus, with the Swedish foreign minister declaring: “Just because there is nobody there doesn’t mean to say that we have closed our embassy.”

U.S. officials steadfastly refused to disclose how many American diplomats would remain in Kuwait. Reports from the region said that 110 of the 120 officials and dependents left the country Thursday morning, leaving behind only the ambassador and nine subordinates.

The diplomats are joined in the embassy by what one source said was a “significant number” of other Americans now sheltered in the three-building compound. Many of them sleep on mattresses hauled to the embassy earlier in the crisis by the diplomats who have now fled the country, the official said.

Times staff writers David Lauter, in Kennebunkport, Me., and Robin Wright, in Washington, contributed to this report.

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