New Iraqi Troops Arrive at Saudi Border : Military: About 50,000 additional soldiers have been sent by Baghdad.

Iraq has moved at least two divisions into positions along Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq, prompting Saudi officials to renew their demands for removal of all Iraqi troops from the frontier region.

Lt. Gen. Khalid ibn Sultan ibn Abdulaziz, commander of the allied Arab forces in Saudi Arabia, said Saturday that the new troops along the Saudi border were among an estimated 50,000 additional forces sent into Kuwait and the surrounding region over the past two weeks.

Khalid discussed the Iraqi reinforcements on the first day of a three-day review of allied multinational forces in Saudi Arabia, which include two Cold War survivors now serving side-by-side with U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia: Syria’s 15,000-man armored division and the first Czechoslovak troops to be deployed since World War II.

“We are not against the Iraqi people,” Khalid told the Syrian forces. “We would stand beside Iraq in the same way if it were subject to aggression. We are not against the Iraqi armed forces, as long as they are with us and not against us. . . . But if their leader misuses them, then we have no option but to stand against him and fight his forces.”

While Iraqi troops have been massed along Saudi Arabia’s border with Kuwait since Baghdad invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, the reinforcements to the west along the Saudi-Iraq border are relatively new and could indicate that Iraq is anticipating an attack along that frontier.

Some battle scenarios suggest that allied troops attempting to liberate Kuwait would probably advance northward through Iraq first, then move east into Kuwait to flank Iraqi troops gathered along the Kuwait-Saudi border.

In public statements this week, Saudi officials have added removal of Iraqi troops from the Saudi-Iraq border as a condition for any peaceful resolution of the gulf crisis, along with an Iraqi pullout from Kuwait and restoration of Kuwait’s government. The demand had been expressed early in the crisis but had not been publicly reiterated until recently.

Khalid refused to discuss the exact size or configuration of the new troops, though two divisions would contain at least 30,000 men. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s apparent intention is “to increase his forces, whether to attack or to make strong defensive points for him,” Khalid said.

The general also declined to speculate on whether such Arab allies as Syria and Egypt, which have said they would not send troops into Iraq after liberation of Kuwait, would also refuse to cross the Saudi-Iraq border.

After a review of the 15,000 troops Syria has deployed in Saudi Arabia, the commander said he is “convinced they will do anything they are ordered to do by their supreme commander. They will do the job, I have confidence.”

But he said the decision about whether to move into Iraq would be made by the heads of state involved. He added that, in any case, he expects the liberation of Kuwait to be a speedy one.

“I believe that most of his (Hussein’s) forces won’t fight,” he said. “I believe they’re forced to be in Kuwait. They just stop fighting, we will make sure nothing will harm them. It hurts to think to harm another Arab brother, with whom we share a lot. My job is to minimize this. But our blood, if they wouldn’t care for it, then I don’t think I will care for their blood.”

Earlier this week, a 170-man chemical weapons team from Czechoslovakia arrived ready to provide training in chemical weapons for civil defense and military units and equipped to decontaminate troops, weapons, equipment and territory if chemical weapons are used.

Only recently, members of the unit said, they were training in Czechoslovakia on how to combat American weapons.

“I never, never dream something like this will happen,” said Lt. Col. Vaclav Spicak. “But in Czechoslovakia we have President Havel now, and it is very fine for us.”