Hard Problems Handling Prisoners Foreseen in Any Assault on Iraqis : Military: Experts say 100,000 troops might be captured. Caring for them would pose legal and logistic challenges.

U.S. and allied forces would have to contend with more than 100,000 Iraqi prisoners of war in a successful offensive, according to U.S. commanders in Saudi Arabia, who fear that angry and frustrated troops might mistreat their captives before prisoner-of-war camps could be set up.

The task of incarcerating, interrogating and feeding so many prisoners of war also would confront the U.S. military with a legal and logistic challenge of unprecedented proportions, defense officials said.

If Iraqi troops are seized in such numbers--predictions range as high as 150,000--planners fear that the United States and its allies could experience food shortages and other difficulties in caring for them in the harsh desert environment.

According to knowledgeable Pentagon officials, the military coalition confronting Iraq must attempt after an offensive to round up Iraqi troops rather than allow them to retreat deep into their country. Planners said that such a strategy would help prevent significant numbers of Iraqi forces from launching counterattacks from within the country.

If Saddam Hussein’s forces are able to withdraw, then threaten the United States and its Arab allies, Operation Desert Shield would be confronted with the divisive prospect of waging a protracted fight against an Arab country appearing to defend its own territory.

In a recent interview with The Times, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the Operation Desert Shield commander, said his own experience in the Vietnam War had underlined the importance of denying Iraqi troops sanctuary inside Iraq.

“We had this situation where the enemy . . . could attack you out of Cambodia and inflict terrible damage on you at a time and place of their choosing and then . . . they ran across the border and . . . we weren’t allowed to attack them. I just don’t want to ever have to fight another war that way. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Several commanders in Saudi Arabia and POW specialists in Washington acknowledged that there is widespread concern for the safety of Iraqi prisoners of war who fall into the hands of American soldiers and even greater concern for those seized by some Desert Shield allies.

U.S. commanders said that the troops’ long wait in the desert under difficult physical and cultural conditions, as well as well-publicized reports about Iraqi human rights abuses, have generated anger that one senior officer said could lead to “potentially a very explosive situation.” In the field, U.S. Marines and soldiers tend to talk with the most anger about rapes reported to have been committed by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait.

As a result, as planning for an offensive operation has progressed, the Army and the Marine Corps have stepped up the mobilization of reservists specializing in the treatment of prisoners of war. At the same time, field commanders and military lawyers have increased efforts to teach combat troops legal responsibilities for the care and treatment of POWs, according to a knowledgeable defense official.

The Marines, for instance, have printed for distribution among the troops thousands of small cards that detail what they call the “six S’s” of POW treatment. They instruct combat troops to:

* Secure prisoners--tying them up or corraling them--as soon as they surrender.

* Search them for documents.

* Silence them so that they do not discuss escape plans or coordinate false stories.

* Segregate officers from enlisted personnel so that they cannot trade uniforms.

* Safeguard captives from harm from combat or at the hands of angry soldiers or civilians.

* Speed POWs to the rear for questioning and legal disposition.

“These troops are out there grunting, ‘Ugh, ugh, ugh, we’re gonna kick some . . . butt!’ and you’ve got to draw the line for them,” said one Defense Department official involved in such planning. “A soldier has to be reasoning and realize that there’s a difference between legalized killing, which is what you are doing in war, and murder. And everybody at every level is responsible for knowing that.”

Planners are particularly concerned that other nations’ troops in Saudi Arabia, who have neither the training nor the discipline of U.S. troops, could commit abuses against Iraqi captives. According to International Red Cross spokesman Francois Zen-Ruffinen, the humanitarian organization has “reminded each country involved of the responsibilities of their troops on the field, and especially in the case of war.”

Zen-Ruffinen added that while no instruction teams have been dispatched yet, the organization in the future may send such teams to provide training to some of the smaller forces in Saudi Arabia on the legal treatment of captives. International Red Cross teams also would inspect POW camps in the event of a war.

Among American forces, military police units would be responsible for overseeing the incarceration of such prisoners, and intelligence units would conduct interrogations.

In addition, American units specializing in psychological operations have planned how to persuade besieged Iraqi troops to surrender, according to U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia.

“We do need the intelligence we get from these people. We have very much of an interest in encouraging the other side to surrender,” said a Pentagon official. The official added that the scrupulous treatment of POWs is key to helping encourage enemy troops to surrender.

“You’d be surprised how it gets back to the other side if there are stories about prisoners being executed,” the source said. “Guys who would gladly wave the white flag will fight to the death” if such reports begin circulating, he added.

Caring for prisoners could be extremely difficult in the harsh environment far from the U.S. military’s supply lines, Pentagon officials said. The Iraqi prisoners, many of whom would be stranded with no food stocks of their own, probably would have to be fed from U.S. supplies of packaged “Meals-Ready-to-Eat,” or MREs.

But even without the addition of Iraqi prisoners, feeding U.S. troops has been troublesome. Commanders in Saudi Arabia have complained of spot shortages of MREs inside Saudi Arabia. Officials said there is some concern that, as combat troops push forward and the number of mouths to feed multiplies, those shortages could increase.

Adding to the difficulties of feeding Iraqi POWs is that fact that American troops would have to remove meals containing pork products--the consumption of which is strictly forbidden under Islamic law. The result, some planners fear, could be difficulties in upholding U.S. responsibilities under the Geneva Convention, which dictates humane treatment of prisoners of war.

“What we expect is more like what was encountered during World War II,” Maj. Louis Traverzo of the U.S. Army Provost Marshal’s office told the British news service Reuters in a recent interview. Traverzo added that sites for housing prisoners would be “away from (Saudi) population centers” but close to water, electricity and supply lines, and “all sites are coordinated with the host nation, as we are guests here.”

If war starts and large numbers of Iraqi soldiers are captured and need to be interned, Traverzo said, the U.S. Army will be ready for them.

BACKGROUND

The problem of dealing with tens of thousands of prisoners of war from a conflict in the Persian Gulf recalls the American experience during World War II. In 1942, the U.S. War Department decided to bring all its Axis prisoners to the States, both to conserve manpower in combat zones and to comply with the Geneva Convention. More than 400,000 prisoners--primarily German and Italian--ended up in stateside camps. According to the Time-Life book “Prisoners of War,” what they found amazed them: clean barracks and good health care and food so plentiful that they wrote their families to stop sending them parcels. A German POW wrote home from Camp Trinidad, Colo.: “After everything we went through, it is just like a rest cure to be here.” Their treatment was so good, in fact, that charges of pampering were raised in the press and Congress.

Times staff writer Douglas Jehl in Saudi Arabia contributed to this report.