180 Iraqi Soldiers Defect, Others Get Saudi Food : Military: Dozens are reported filtering back and forth across the border every day. U.S. officials complain that they are excluded from interrogations.

At least 180 Iraqi soldiers have fled to Saudi Arabia as defectors, and dozens more filter back and forth across the border every day seeking food and water from front-line Arab troops, according to senior U.S. officials here.

The defections have become a source of U.S.-Saudi friction, with American officials complaining that they have been barred from the interrogations of the Iraqi soldiers and expressing concern that the Saudis may be doing too little to encourage a further exodus.

Some U.S. officials said they view with particular misgiving a scene played out daily along the northern border, where small groups of Iraqis cross over to Saudi positions for amiable visits and then are permitted to return to their positions on the other side of the frontier.

Saudi Arabia’s handling of the incidents has underscored the unusual fraternal relations between the two large Arab military forces aligned against each other across Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

“It’s basically a practice that’s going on all along the border,” one ranking U.S. military official said. “The Saudis see it as taking care of their Muslim brothers.”

In disclosing for the first time the sizable number of Iraqi defectors, the U.S. officials expressed frustration at the unwillingness of their Saudi counterparts to present the soldiers to the public--a step the Americans believe could have significant propaganda value.

At the same time, they complained that the exclusion of American experts from debriefing sessions with the Iraqis meant the United States had gained little reliable insight into even the day-to-day atmosphere among Iraqi forces.

“The Iraqi soldiers come across, and they tell the Saudis everything they think the Saudis want to hear,” a ranking U.S. official said. “Then the Saudis turn around and tell us everything they think we want to hear.

“That means by the time it gets to us, we’re left with lots of stories about unhappy soldiers, shortages of food and equipment and no paychecks,” the official said. “But we’re not so sure it’s really like that.”

The number of Iraqi defectors appears consistent with previously unconfirmed accounts by Kuwaiti officials in exile, who have said four to five soldiers a day have turned themselves over to Saudi authorities.

U.S. officials dismissed separate reports that Iraq’s armed forces have used minefields or other barriers in an effort to keep their troops from heading south across the border, saying there were no indications of such steps being taken.

A well-informed U.S. military official said most defectors have been enlisted men rather than officers. He said he has heard no reports suggesting that any of them have brought with them equipment or intelligence of particular value.

But the official said the United States nevertheless regarded the defections as a sign of significant dissatisfaction within Iraq’s armed forces. He said U.S. intelligence experts will continue to seek more direct access to the defectors on grounds that interviews could yield important information about the morale, well-being and general preparedness of Iraqi soldiers on the other side of the line.

In maintaining a low profile about the defections, the Saudi government appears to have made a deliberate decision to avoid any actions that might encourage large numbers of additional Iraqi soldiers to make their way across the border.

The principal concern voiced by Saudi officials is the prospect that Iraqi officials would seek to punish family members of those soldiers discovered to have defected, according to sources familiar with U.S.-Saudi discussions on the issue.

The Saudis have played down the value of the information provided by enlisted men, and they have warned that a military confrontation could be provoked if, for example, a large number of Iraqi soldiers sought to escape en masse against the determined opposition of their sentries.

“If some Iraqi soldiers tried to drive a tank across the border and some trigger-happy Iraqis shot at it, that could be it,” said one source, summarizing the Saudi position.

Although U.S. officials indicated that they share the Saudi concerns to some extent, they made clear that they feel Iraqi dissatisfaction has not been sufficiently exploited from an intelligence or a propaganda point of view.

In particular, many said they are uncomfortable with the reports of Iraqi soldiers crossing the border on a daily basis for refreshments with their Saudi counterparts and then crossing back to combat positions.

With few liaison officers in front-line Saudi positions, U.S. military officials apparently were unaware of the extent of such fraternization until late last month, when Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the region, visited a Saudi observation post near the border.

As a Saudi colonel asked the general if he would like to see some Iraqi troops, Schwarzkopf eagerly scanned the horizon with his binoculars. Not there, the Saudi reportedly said, pointing instead to the ground below them.

Looking down, Schwarzkopf reportedly saw a parked Iraqi truck whose driver and passengers had been greeted only moments before by Saudi troops and offered food and drink.

A military official who described the Sept. 29 visit said Schwarzkopf even looked under the hood of the truck and noted that its engine was in disrepair and its battery jury-rigged, but indicated that the commander never met the Iraqi troops.

An account of the incident was first reported this week in Newsweek. In confirming its main details Thursday, U.S. sources said they now understand that such exchanges occur nearly every day along front lines, where there are virtually no American troops.

In a border region where soldiers sometimes are distant relatives as well as neighbors and fellow Muslims, one official said, “There are basically just a lot of informal contacts going on at the human level.”

American sources said the United States has been assured that all Iraqis who cross the b order are given an opportunity to defect. But only a small proportion of them have done so, with most eagerly accepting food and water and then heading back to their posts.

U.S. officials made clear they would prefer that Saudi authorities along the border work more aggressively to persuade the border-crossing Iraqis to change sides permanently. They also voiced skepticism about the view that kind treatment might make the Iraqi forces less hostile in case of war.

But one U.S. military spokesman said the firsthand observations by the Iraqi troops who cross the line might at least correct some of the false impressions that Iraqi authorities may have tried to create about their adversaries.

“They throw a lot of disinformation about American soldiers starving and dying in the heat,” the spokesman said. “So if these soldiers come over and get food and water and then go back, you can imagine the effect it has on the morale of everybody else.”