Freed Hostage Says War Is Not Answer : Strategy: Morale among the so-called guests ‘is already bad enough,’ American reports.

An American banker, one of three U.S. hostages freed Tuesday by Iraq, said a U.N. resolution authorizing military action in the Persian Gulf crisis could shatter the spirits of those left behind.

John Stevenson, who was held as a so-called human shield at a potential military target in Iraq, told reporters on arrival here that the hostages’ morale “is already bad enough.”

If the Security Council adopts the resolution, Stevenson said, “this just deepens it.”

“With this war threat, they’re mentally deteriorating, each of us, daily, by the hour,” he said, declaring that the American-led majority on the council is “trying to kill the hostages.”

The two other freed Americans are Iranian-born John Harrington of Bellevue, Wash., and Clyde Jesse of Buffalo Grove, Ill. The three men were released to members of their families, who went to Baghdad to personally seek their freedom.

Washington officials have attempted to discourage the private missions, saying they reinforce the propaganda of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Hussein has used the hostage issue to divert attention from the occupation of Kuwait, releasing scores of foreigners over the past month to delegations endorsing a comprehensive Middle East political settlement as the way out of the crisis.

On Tuesday, the Iraqi leader said an undisclosed number of Americans will be turned over to a mission led by Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion. Hussein previously ordered the release of French, German and Swedish hostages and said that all the hostages, estimated at more than 2,000, would be freed over a three-month period beginning Christmas Day if “the peace atmosphere” is not disturbed.

Stevenson, who worked at a Kuwait bank for 11 years before being swept up by Iraqi security forces after the Aug. 2 invasion, pointedly told reporters: “I was a victim of a political situation, a helpless victim. My family brought me out, by the way, not the (U.S.) government.”

He said he had been treated well in confinement: “The guards were good with me.” Reports by previously released French and British hostages painted a harsh portrait of captivity at the strategic sites.

Stevenson was accompanied out of Baghdad by his two brothers and a sister.

While Stevenson appeared outspoken in his criticism of U.S. policy, the two other Americans on the flight from Iraq were less talkative. But Honey Jesse, the wife of the Illinois hostage, advocated a political solution.

“You got to sit down and talk instead of dropping bombs,” she said. “That’s not the answer.”

Returning on the same flight, two German men, Uwe Wruck and Charles Stubbe, described difficult conditions in Kuwait, where they had been in hiding until last week, when they were given permission to leave. Hussein freed all German hostages last week.

The men said they were living in an apartment just 50 yards from Iraqi military positions on the Kuwait city shoreline. They had rigged television cameras on their building to keep watch on the soldiers, they said, and never left their flat during daylight hours.

Decreasing food supplies in Kuwait were a problem, they told reporters, saying they had been forced to sell the furnishings of their apartment to raise cash for purchases. The Germans implied that Kuwaiti families helped them keep up their food stocks.

“We would only go out around 2 or 3 in the morning to dump the garbage,” Wruck said. During the day, they kept quiet behind locked doors, giving the appearance that the apartment was vacant.

“Some people are in very bad shape,” Wruck claimed, adding that the foreigners kept in touch by telephone.

According to the official Iraq News Agency, Hussein told the American families in personal meetings that Iraq seeks a political resolution of the crisis because Baghdad is in a “very bad need for such peace.”

On Tuesday, a Reuters dispatch from the Iraqi capital, quoting a Western diplomat, said six Americans and 59 Britons had been moved from Kuwait to undisclosed locations in Iraq.

The report said the foreigners were held for two days at the Mansour Melia hotel in Baghdad and then taken away by bus. Western diplomats in Baghdad describe the hotel as a transit stop for hostages who are sent to strategic sites in Iraq.

The diplomat quoted by Reuters speculated that the foreigners had been moved up from Kuwait to take the place of others released in Baghdad over the past week.

“They seem to have been clearing out the sites (in Kuwait),” the report quoted another diplomat as saying. “I believe most of them have left--at least all the ones we know about.”

The Iraqi strategy in the reported move was unclear. Some diplomats in Baghdad say the Iraqis have concluded that holding hostages increases the chance of war. By this line of thinking, removing the hostages in Kuwait eliminates a motive for military action against the occupied oil sheikdom.

However, one diplomat quoted by Reuters argued the reverse logic. “The Iraqis are maybe making a distinction between Kuwait and Iraq,” he said. “They could be making a point--’Don’t shoot at Iraq.’ ”

Meanwhile, American-led military forces in the region continued to squeeze Iraqi shipping under the U.N. trade embargo. Press reports said American, French and Spanish warships, in a combined operation, stopped and boarded an Iraqi freighter in the Red Sea early Tuesday after firing warning shots near the vessel.

The freighter was allowed to continue its voyage when its cargo, which was not described, was determined not to be violation of the trade sanctions.