COLUMN ONE : Held in the Grip of the Enemy : There are strong suspicions that POWs in Iraq have been abused. Mental health experts also worry about how prisoners may be treated after they come home.

They spoke haltingly into the Iraqi microphones, obviously under duress. One by one, the seven allied pilots--three of them identified as Americans--uttered the words softly, giving their names and ranks and quietly asserting that the allies had been mistaken in attacking Iraq.

To many, the staged event brought back wrenching memories of the barbaric treatment that other American POWs had received during the Korean and Vietnam wars--paraded blindfolded in public and then beaten into “confessing” their “crimes.”

Since the brainwashing fears that surfaced in the Korean War, U.S. service personnel have begun receiving strict do’s and don’ts about how to behave as prisoners of war--as well as rigorous training exercises that have sought to simulate captivity under harsh circumstances.

“The training that the military, especially aviation personnel, go through will stand them in good stead,” Larry Spencer, a Navy airman held captive for seven years in Vietnam, asserts.

Yet, despite the 1949 Geneva Conventions requiring the humane treatment of POWs, experience has shown that POWs--especially in the hands of ruthless dictators--are often subject to enormous and sometimes inhumane pressures, and even torture.

Already there are strong suspicions that the seven prisoners in Iraq are being abused: Peter Arnett, the Cable News Network correspondent in Baghdad who actually saw them make their audiotape, said their faces showed what he suggested looked like marks from beatings. Their demeanor was decidedly subdued.

“The pattern is obvious: These men have been subjected to beatings and torture,” says Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy pilot who spent 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam. “That’s the only thing that would cause them to say anything against their country. We must assume these men were physically mistreated.”

Another former POW, first-year Rep. Pete Peterson (D-Fla.), agrees. “I really think that everyone should really discount anything that is coming out of those guys right now,” says Peterson, a former Air Force fighter pilot who spent 6 1/2 years as a POW in Vietnam after being shot out of the sky near Hanoi in 1966.

“These folks have been down for a couple of days,” he asserts. “They are probably in shock, they are probably dying of thirst, they may be injured, they’ve obviously been tortured--I have no qualms whatever about saying that. They’re being asked to do exactly what we were asked to do.”

The issue is apt to be an important one. With the likelihood growing of a sustained ground war, the number of POWs in the Persian Gulf--on both sides--will undoubtedly rise, thus highlighting the issue of the treatment of war prisoners.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the Pentagon already is embroiled in a painful debate over how much information about POWs to release to the public. Many argue that almost everything should be withheld: The more information there is, the more the Iraqis will have to use for exploitative ends.

Reflecting that debate, a Navy officer offers an emotional plea for news organizations not to track down the families and neighbors of POWs and those missing in action--as most already did in the cases of the three airmen believed to be Americans who were displayed on Sunday--and not to publicize anything about the GIs. He said such reporting is likely to be used by Baghdad to coerce information and war plans--as well as to wreak emotional punishment on the captured airmen.

“Missing in action means missing in action, and they (the press) don’t have to go to the neighbor and ask all about them,” he complains. The military didn’t release the names of POWs in Vietnam, but “we’re doing it now,” he says. “If we didn’t mind them talking to the enemy, we wouldn’t tell them not to.”

In the past, the military has had an ambivalent attitude toward POWs who have confessed their “sins” while in enemy hands. After Lt. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, skipper of the U.S. spy ship Pueblo, and his crew were freed by North Koreans 11 months following their capture in 1968, a Navy Court of Inquiry recommended a court martial. The commander of the Pacific Fleet ordered reprimands instead. More than 20 years later, after a tireless campaign by Bucher supporters, the Navy awarded medals to Bucher and the Pueblo crew.

Mental health experts also express concern about how the POWs may be treated after they come home.

Edna J. Hunter, a psychologist who once headed the now-defunct Center for POW Studies, a government-financed research agency in San Diego, says the prisoners’ long-term well-being can be significantly improved if the public supports them rather than treating them with disdain and suspicion, or viewing them as walking time bombs who have been brainwashed by the enemies.

“All the research shows they can deal with so much more stress and can cope with much more than they ever thought they could,” Hunter says. “A lot of people who hear the experiences of POWs say: ‘I could never go through that.’ Well, we are stronger than we think.”

Leon Ellis, a former POW in Vietnam for five years, agrees. “To survive, the first thing is you have to remember that others have done it and made it through,” he says.

Hunter says she is more optimistic than ever about the resilience of the current American POWs because, as a group, they tend to be older and perhaps more committed to their mission and their cause than younger POWs from past wars.

“All the men in Iraq are volunteers,” Hunter says. “I would predict that because they are more committed, they will survive better--they know why they’re there and what they are fighting for. It was their choice. They weren’t made to go.”

Hunter, who serves on the POW advisory committee for the Department of Veterans Affairs, urges Americans not to forget the plight of the families of POWs. And she urges the Pentagon to “encourage and allow” for the families to “get together.”

How to treat prisoners of war isn’t exactly a new issue in military history. In ancient times, captives were commonly killed or offered as sacrifices to the gods. During the Middle Ages, POWs were held for ransom--a practice that became so widespread that a formal scale of payment actually evolved. It wasn’t until the close of the Middle Ages that the principle of humane treatment began to take hold.

By the late 18th Century and into the 19th Century, the United States had signed numerous treaties detailing the provisions for treating POWs. Spurred by atrocities during World War II, such as the forced Bataan Death March in the Philippines, of U.S. prisoners by the Japanese, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 were adopted--and signed by many nations, including Iraq.

But adherence to its principles was anything but strict.

During the Korean War, for example, Communist forces captured more than 7,000 GIs, and then marched them from the front lines to prison camps in treks reminiscent of the brutal Bataan march. Those who survived the ordeal then had to subsist on a diet of virtually nothing but rice--leading to mass starvation, illness and death. Some American POWs in Vietnam also died for lack of medication.

Iraq is no novice at handling prisoners of war and has been relatively humane in the past, officials here say.

During its eight-year war against Iran, Baghdad captured tens of thousands of prisoners. In most cases, it allowed Red Cross delegates to visit POW camps, interview prisoners without witnesses, exchange messages and provide care as needed.

Such openness is more than a matter of granting perks. Research has shown that a key predictor of how well a POW does after repatriation is his ability to communicate with fellow prisoners during captivity, according to Charles Figley, a nationally known scientist and government consultant on post-traumatic stress syndrome who is now at Florida State University.

“Also, the ability to fantasize, to think abstractly, such as ‘being able to go to movies in your mind,’ can be very helpful,” Figley says.

Another vital ingredient in the speedy and long-term recovery from the POW experience is the amount of counseling and other social support services.

Figley contends that the length of captivity by itself may not be much of a factor. “If you’re exposed to it and then it’s over quickly, that may prove to be more negative an experience than going a little bit longer--to a point where you begin to get a sense of mastery, control over your life, whether you really have it or not,” he says.

During earlier conflicts, particularly in Korea, U.S. military rules directed POWs to resist to the death any attempt to force them to make propaganda statements. But that has been substantially changed.

In more recent years, realizing that trying to follow the code often brought even harsher treatment to some POWs, the Pentagon redesigned its POW-training program, rewording the Code of Military Conduct to give American GIs more leeway to cooperate with their captors under duress.

For example, where previously the code had allowed a captured soldier to give only his name, rank, serial number and date of birth, it now provides the escape clause: “I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability.”

“The change involved just a few words, but it makes a great difference.” says psychologist Hunter. “Because people vary greatly in their ability to resist torture or harsh treatment, this allows people some leeway.”

Each branch of the U.S. armed forces has its own POW training. The Navy’s includes a week or so of classroom training and lectures, followed by an arduous field exercise, either in the woods of Maine or the Southern California desert, complete with instructors who assume the uniforms, accents and even mannerisms of a foreign army. The instructors even fire blanks at the students. The students are expected to try to escape.

Lt. David Wray, a Navy spokesman, says the exercises are designed “with the cards heavily stacked so that the students nearly always are captured.” During the simulated captivity, the students are subjected to sleep deprivation as well as “all forms of verbal and psychological harassment designed to chip away at their resistance.”

“The idea is, it’s almost like it’s a vaccination,” Wray says. “You get a small dose of the disease in hopes of building up your immunity.”

How the American public ultimately will react to the attempts by Iraq to exploit American POWs, and to the apparently coerced statements by the captives, remains unclear.

But Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a staunch conservative and former Air Force fighter pilot, says he has no problem with captured airmen making propaganda statements--as long as they do not divulge military secrets.

“Condemning the war is a freebie,” Dornan says. “They can condemn the war to the high heavens, because I know they would die under torture rather than give away information that would hurt a fellow airman.”

Adds Florida’s representative and former POW Peterson: “Just give them the benefit of the doubt at the moment, because they need our prayers. They certainly don’t need anyone to second-guess the circumstances they’ve found themselves in.”

Times staff writers Melissa Healy and Jennifer Toth contributed to this story.