Stress Takes Heavy Toll on Hostages : Gulf crisis: An Italian freed by Iraq says some captives are ‘going out of their minds,’ drinking and showing signs of depression.

Some Western hostages in Iraq are “going out of their minds,” drinking heavily and showing clinical signs of depression, a freed Italian journalist said today.

“There are a lot of people who’ve started to drink, others who no longer talk,” said Roberto Fabiani of the Italian magazine L’Espresso.

“(They) go from chair to chair in the hotels, and some are even beginning to show clinical signs. They’re going out of their minds,” Fabiani told reporters on arrival at Rome’s international airport.

Fabiani, tired and unshaven, arrived in Rome via Athens from Amman, Jordan, with seven other Italians freed last week by Baghdad.

He was in Kuwait when Iraqi forces invaded on Aug. 2. He said he was put in a camp and transferred to Baghdad two days later.

“Then the real odyssey began, the period in which we were considered hostages. There was no real violence. We were all treated very well, but it was a simple case of prison,” he said.

Iraq is holding several thousand Westerners, including about 290 Italians. Some are at strategic installations as human shields to deter any attack by a U.S.-dominated multinational force that has gathered in Saudi Arabia and the gulf.

“The situation is bad and getting worse,” Fabiani said. “There’s too much stress.”

In the Middle East today, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a staunch supporter of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, said his nation would not be involved in a military strike against Iraq.

Mubarak was interviewed by Mayo, the weekly Cairo newspaper of his ruling party.

“We will not enter Iraq under any circumstances,” said the Egyptian leader, who has dispatched more than 15,000 Egyptian troops to Saudi Arabia to serve in the U.S.-led multinational force deployed to counter Iraqi aggression.

“We have nothing to do with Iraq, but to enter Kuwait as peacekeeping forces, we have no objections whatsoever,” Mubarak said. “This is natural, although I hope this day will never come. I want everything to be achieved by peace.”