Wives of Hostages Design Own Strategy for Iraq : Human shields: Many women plan to go to Baghdad, despite the Administration’s opposition, to seek the release of spouses.

It’s 6 p.m., and one by one the women from all over the country begin to telephone in, joining the mass conference call. Most are strangers to one another, but there is an instant bond.

No time is wasted on niceties. Instead, they go right to the central issue: When do we go to Baghdad, and which prominent person or public official can we persuade to head our delegation?

The several dozen women are married to men who have been held in Iraq since the Persian Gulf crisis began after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Many of the husbands are so-called human shields whom Iraq is holding at strategic sites in hopes of warding off a possible allied attack.

Now, some of the women are on the verge of going to Iraq, in defiance of the U.S. government, to try to win their husbands’ release.

Their resolve has strengthened even as several members of Congress, under pressure from the Bush Administration, appear to be backing away from making such a trip themselves.

“The mission is taking shape--the women’s hearts are set on getting their husbands out,” says a physician who is serving as a consultant to them.

Emerging from more than three months of silence and isolation, several dozen wives of hostages are rapidly banding together and starting to develop an agenda quite separate from--and in conflict with--that of the Administration. The phone calls late last week were typical of their network’s efforts.

“The government’s not helping us, and so we have to help ourselves,” says Kim Edwards of Carson City, Nev.

This gradual estrangement, which is intensifying as the gulf crisis drags on, looms ominously for the President, raising the prospect that the hostage issue could mushroom into a potent political force and turn against Bush, just as a similar situation turned on President Jimmy Carter a decade ago.

Some of the hostages’ wives already have opened a dialogue with Iraqi officials, and one said last week that she has been promised an audience with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Others have begun building networks with anti-war groups and with families of hostages from abroad.

The women are keenly aware that they may be seen as propaganda tools in a ploy by Hussein to weaken the international anti-Iraq coalition. But they say they are driven simply by a craving to see their loved ones, perhaps one last time.

More fearful than ever that war is inevitable, the women now plan to go to Baghdad in early December, unwilling to wait for the Christmas reunions that Hussein already has promised to allow the families.

Some are even considering making a symbolic gesture while they are in Baghdad, perhaps by taking clothes for Iraqi children in a strategy that one would-be traveler calls “the psychology of peace instead of the psychology of war.”

Meanwhile, sponsors are completing arrangements for observing a global Yellow Ribbon Day on Dec. 2, in the same weekend as a planned gathering of hostage families in Washington. The group expects to be joined by members of a growing cadre of military families who are opposing U.S. military action.

“Odessa (Tex.) already looks like a field of tulips,” Donnita Cole reported from West Texas, referring to the yellow ribbons that once again have become national symbols of remembrance for hostages.

Not all hostages’ wives want to go to Iraq.

“I think they’re crazy,” said Bonnie Anderton of Larkspur, Colo., whose husband is still holed up, with other Americans, in the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. She and her daughter escaped in early September.

“At this point, (my daughter) Jennifer doesn’t have a dad, and I don’t want to risk her losing (her) mom,” Anderton said in a separate telephone interview.

“I know how dangerous it was just to get out” of Kuwait, she declared. “It’s nuts to go back into that.”

Still, the powerful urge to go is understandable, said Dorothea Morefield, who became an outspoken critic of the government a decade ago when her husband Richard, a diplomat, was held captive in Tehran for 444 days when Carter was President.

“It’s a tough decision,” Morefield said. “If the government is saying don’t go because there might be war, that’s one thing. But if it’s just an inconvenience for the government, then to hell with the government.”

The agony and the desperation facing many of the hostage wives come through all too clearly during one conference call. Many of the women do not want their names disclosed, some citing a fear of retribution or even harassment from their own government.

“My husband’s not well, and I have to get him out,” a woman from Utah said. “He’s losing a lot of weight. He has an awful ulcer problem. I have every intention of going.”

Another woman, with a heavy foreign accent, joined in, hesitantly: “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you get over there.”

Another woman disagreed.

“I’m willing to take that chance,” she said.