U.S. Hostage Mystery: How Many Are Left Behind, Facing What Perils? : Exodus: The first flights to freedom prove a relief to diplomats having trouble keeping track of their citizens.

Confusion reigned Sunday over the exodus of hostage women and children from Iraq, while the distressing task remained of accounting for just who would be left behind and what jeopardy they are in.

A flight of hostages scheduled to leave on a jetliner from France was canceled without explanation Sunday night, although the plane was rescheduled to arrive here today. In all, about 700 Western and Japanese hostages have fled by air in the past two days, many of them Americans.

Iraq reiterated its decision to free women and children but not Western and Japanese men. Some of the foreigners have been placed at industrial and military installations as a “shield” against attack from the multinational forces now gathered in the Persian Gulf region in defense of Saudi Arabia.

“Women are free to leave, and men are not free,” said government spokesman Najil Hadithi again Sunday. “Because the American Administration is threatening Iraq with war, we believe that by holding these people in these installations, the war fever in the White House is reduced.”

Iraqi officials have listed airports, air force bases, power plants, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, fuel storage depots and communications centers as likely sites where the human “shields” will be detained. U.S. officials have added chemical weapons plants to the list.

The initial departure of hostages was a relief to diplomats who are having trouble calculating exactly which of their citizens are where. The problem is especially acute in Kuwait, where the Iraqis have pulled the plug on telephone lines in embassies and where travel is proscribed by military order.

Iraq has declared embassies in conquered seaside Kuwait city to be redundant because Iraq has annexed Kuwait.

American officials know of no more than 10 American citizens who have been rounded up in Iraq and sent to strategic industrial and military sites. The whereabouts and fate of the other 400 or so mostly male U.S. citizens still believed to be in Iraq are not certain. “It’s a mystery,” said an American diplomat here.

At least three dozen Americans were bused to Baghdad from Kuwait shortly after the Aug. 2 invasion, and many of those are probably being held as human shields, local observers say.

The dimension of the overall American hostage problem--that is, the numbers of Americans forbidden to leave Iraq and Kuwait, whether they are in custody or not--was whittled down slightly by officials here. The number of Americans in Kuwait is now estimated to be 2,000. Among those, 1,400 are women and children who are presumably free to leave in the wake of the decision last week announced by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Escapes from Kuwait may account for the 20% reduction in estimated number of U.S. citizens stranded there. Some have escaped to Saudi Arabia and never checked in with the U.S. diplomatic missions in that country.

“Some may have been caught by the Iraqis on the way. Some may have died in the desert,” said a Western diplomat here.

Several dozen Americans have taken refuge on U.S. diplomatic property in Kuwait. Diplomats there ran into a form of double jeopardy in trying to keep track of their citizens. With lines cut, it is impossible to maintain telephone contact. Even when the phones were working, diplomats hesitated to call; the Iraqis could trace the numbers and perhaps ferret out Americans who were in hiding.

The high ratio of women and children to male Americans in Kuwait was attributed to marriages between U.S. women and Arabs.

Sandy Abdul Karim, who fled Iraq on Saturday with her four children, left behind her Jordanian husband in Kuwait.

“He is going back to work,” she said, explaining that he holds a job at an oil company. “He’s exempt from all this.”

Abdul Karim was born in Denver and left the United States 12 years ago. Her blonde, foreign appearance did not cause her trouble in Kuwait, although she admitted that after the invasion she largely stayed indoors. Someone had explained to her that since she was married to an Arab man, her family would be treated like Arabs and not face detention.

Abdul Karim was ambivalent about the Persian Gulf crisis. “I think the Arabs should stay on their side and the Americans on theirs,” she remarked.

She has not visited her native land for six years and felt that “the Arab world is more my own and going back to America scares” her.

About half the number of the estimated 400 Americans in Iraq itself are scattered around on U.S. diplomatic property. Of the other 200 or so, most are living at home. The number vulnerable to being rounded up and sent to strategic spots as human “shields” was estimated to be in the dozens.

The drama of husbands being separated from wives and left to an uncertain fate is being shared not only by Americans but an array of other nationalities. The Western and Japanese population of Kuwait and Iraq together was placed at about 12,000 when the crisis began early last month.

The Italian Embassy said that seven Italians were picked up in Kuwait and have disappeared. Japanese officials believe that 143 of their citizens have been rounded up and taken as human “shields.”

On Saturday, a British citizen who was seeing his wife and four teen-age children off on a West German jet to freedom said “the decision to separate was easy.”

“The pressure of family has been a weight on my mind,” he said, adding in understatement, “The uncertainty was always unsettling.”