900 Americans Trapped by Iraq, U.S. Says

At least 900 American men, women and children are trapped in Iraq and Kuwait, the State Department said today as it again accused Saddam Hussein’s government of barbarism.

At least 93 of these U.S. hostages, including many with serious medical problems, have been detained by the Iraqi government. Nine were seized over the weekend, one as he tried to board what could be the last evacuation flight sanctioned by Baghdad.

Most of the adult male Americans in Iraq and Kuwait are in hiding, said Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Department spokeswoman. For the sake of their safety she declined to provide exact figures.

More than 1,900 American citizens and their foreign-born family members have been evacuated from the two Persian Gulf countries since Iraq seized Kuwait Aug. 2.

Remaining behind, Tutwiler said, are 600 to 700 American citizens in Kuwait and 300 to 350 in Iraq.

“We find it particularly deplorable that the Iraqis have not only ignored our request to evacuate Americans with serious medical problems, but are now beginning to detain them,” the U.S. official said.

She called the detention of sick people, some of them with terminal illnesses, “barbaric.”

Iraq has said it was using American men as human shields to deter a U.S. attack on oil refineries and other strategic installations.

President Bush and senior U.S. officials have not ruled out force as a means of compelling Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. Basically, however, the Administration is hoping an embargo on Iraqi commerce authorized by the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 6 will prompt him to relent.

On Sunday, the Iraqi leader threatened to attack Saudi Arabia, other Arab countries and Israel if Iraq was “strangled” by the economic sanctions.

Tutwiler called it “another outlandish, outrageous statement.”

And yet, she said, “we have not seen any responsible statement toward doing what the world is saying he must do, which is withdraw from Kuwait and let the restoration of the legitimate government in Kuwait go back.”