U.N., Other Agencies Will Aid Refugees : Relief: As many as 400,000 could be displaced in first stage of conflict, officials predict.

The United Nations and hundreds of nonprofit organizations around the world began the grim task Thursday of launching humanitarian relief efforts to aid up to a million refugees expected to flee Iraq and Kuwait now that war is raging in the Persian Gulf.

Many of the groups had designed contingency plans as the United Nations’ Tuesday deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait approached, while hoping they would not have to be activated. Some even had sent emergency medical supplies to the region before the U.S. commenced bombing early Thursday.

U.N. officials have projected that perhaps 400,000 people could be displaced in the first phase of a gulf war, according to a U.N. contingency plan obtained by The Times. The number includes Iraqi and Kuwaiti nationals, as well as Egyptian, Palestinian and Sudanese workers in the two countries.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has had two planes on standby in Geneva, ready to transport medical supplies, tents and other equipment. “War is our daily bread, but there is a limited amount you can do to prepare,” said Fred Isler of the Red Cross in New York, just hours before U.S. planes began bombing raids on Iraq.

Isler said Thursday that it was not clear where the planes would be sent first because reports of civilian casualties and movements in the war zone were sketchy. “It hasn’t crystallized yet where the bulk of the problems will be,” he said. But “we are up day and night, ready to move.”

Robert Seiple, president of Monrovia-based World Vision, a Christian relief and development agency that operates in 94 countries, said he had received enough information to decide to send $1 million worth of medical supplies to Jordan, where the largest influx of refugees is expected.

Some other organizations had acted in anticipation of a war. Operation California, a Los Angeles organization that has airlifted medical supplies to 35 disaster-struck or war-torn countries over the last 12 years, has 15 tons of supplies heading for Cyprus on a ship, where it will be turned over to the International Red Cross for distribution.

The group has another 10 tons of supplies at its San Pedro warehouse and will ship it out as soon as it can obtain transportation, said Richard Walden, Operation California’s president.

Jerral Sorensen of Direct Relief International of Santa Barbara said he is looking for help in shipping 2 1/2 tons of medical supplies to New York. Once there, Turkish Airlines has pledged to fly the shipment at no cost to Istanbul for distribution to refugees expected to arrive there.

Direct Relief is one of many voluntary organizations that have been gearing up to help refugees for some time, in many instances continuing efforts that they began last August when Iraq invaded Kuwait and triggered a flood of refugees into Jordan. It is expensive work.

Fran Sullivan, chief of the U.N.’s International Office of Migration, said it cost the organization $65 million to move 150,000 evacuees in August and September.

She estimated that it would cost $38 million to care for the first 100,000 refugees this time, assuming equal distribution of evacuees to Iran, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. But as the U.N.’s regional humanitarian plan acknowledges, “It is impossible to predict either which border points will appear to be the safest route of escape or the breakdown by nationalities of the displaced population.”

The U.N. plan for its entire relief operation estimates costs of $175 million. This would include costs of transportation, food, emergency medical supplies and other needs. Massive fund-raising will be needed because “resources so far put at the disposal of the U.N. are virtually depleted,” according to the agency.

Refugee camps already are in place in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Jordan, including camps that served evacuees in August. The U.N. has placed staff members and supplies, including tents, kitchen utensils, blankets, medical kits and communication equipment, in those four “front-line countries,” in anticipation that refugees would soon be descending upon them. Several of the volunteer organizations have staffers in those countries, as well as on Israel’s occupied West Bank.