Hundreds of Kuwaitis Are Freed by Iraq

Allied and Iraqi military officials, meeting twice on Thursday, pressed forward on the Gulf War’s human accounting, arranging the return of Kuwaitis carried off by retreating Iraqis, seeking the whereabouts of 10 U.S. airmen still listed as missing in action and about three dozen missing Western journalists--and keeping up the homeward flow of thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war.

The two meetings--one held in Saudi Arabia and the other an impromptu talk in the desert at “Checkpoint Freedom” here--bore fruit.

Buses and trucks packed with hundreds of Kuwaiti men--many of them injured and wasted but joyfully shouting, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”--headed back late Thursday night to their homeland, where they had been snatched off streets and out of mosques by occupying Iraqi troops. More were expected to follow from the estimated 6,000 believed held in Iraqi prisons, many of them rounded up as hostages in the last days before Kuwait city was liberated.

Crown Prince Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, the Kuwaiti prime minister, on Thursday put the figure at 5,500 to 6,000. Some Western diplomats said they believe only about 1,500 Kuwaitis were taken to Iraq.

The main developments included:

In a six-hour meeting in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, military officers from Iraq, the United States, Kuwait and three other allied countries “agreed to carry out as rapidly as possible the global repatriation” of all prisoners of war and civilians held by both sides, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced.

Scores of Iraqi refugees who had fled the industrial city of Basra, where pockets of rebellion were reportedly being subdued by Republican Guard artillery and tank fire, were camped disconsolately in a no-man’s-land here at the border after Kuwait refused to let them enter.

Red Cross officials said they tried to reach Basra to search out the missing journalists and investigate unconfirmed U.S. military and refugee reports that chemicals had been used in in that city to put down the insurrection. But they said they were turned back.

An official Baghdad newspaper editorial, carried by the Iraqi News Agency and monitored in Cyprus, answered persistent claims that fundamentalist rebels are holding their own against the Republican Guard in some cities and threatened Thursday, “All of them shall regret it.”

Desert Meeting

An initial group of Kuwaiti men, seized over the seven months that Iraq occupied Kuwait, were freed after an unusual daylong meeting between U.S. and Iraqi military authorities at the checkpoint in the no-man’s-land in U.S.-occupied southern Iraq.

Two Iraqi officers crossed over Thursday, accompanied by several escorts and waving an orange flag, a signal prearranged during peace negotiations last week. “They came smoothly; we had no problems with them,” said U.S. Army Col. Jim Stone.

While the Iraqis had said they intended to release the Kuwaitis starting today, in fact the first batch crossed into allied territory late Thursday. No journalists were among them and “they have not mentioned journalists at all,” Stone said.

A Bush Administration official in Washington estimated that the first batch of Kuwaitis numbered 800 to 2,000, with more expected today, according to the Red Cross.

The desert crossing marked the first time the two sides had met at the designated linkup point since hostilities were suspended. Stone said one Iraqi lieutenant colonel joined U.S. officers for lunch--field rations known as MREs (meals, ready to eat). “We had lunch, we engaged in some small talk. We talked about their food and ours. They were somewhat intrigued by the MREs.”

After lunch, the Iraqi officers were seen standing in a circle with American officers, playing an impromptu game of soccer with a stone in the sand around the three tents and two flags that make up Checkpoint Freedom.

Refugees Stuck

Bedraggled refugees fleeing the fighting in southern Iraq wandered around, stranded in the no-man’s-land when Kuwaitis refused to let non-Kuwaitis enter the country.

Four Jordanians of Palestinian origin who were released from jail in Nasiriyah by rebelling citizens said they walked the entire 220 miles only to be denied entrance to Kuwait.

One, Gassen Mutleq, said he was born in Kuwait and had worked there as a computer operator for several years before Iraqis arrested him and sent him to Iraq about a month ago.

“My wife in Kuwait, my brother in Kuwait, my mother and father in Kuwait, my work in Kuwait. We haven’t food, we haven’t water, we haven’t anything, only these clothes,” he said. “We can’t go to Kuwait, we can’t go to Iraq, we must stay here.”

“There is nothing. There is no dreams after this moment,” said his companion, Ibrahim Mohammed Awad. “I will stay here,” he said, looking at a deserted string of shops where the two men were sharing an MRE provided by two U.S. soldiers. “I will die here.”

U.S. servicemen have been giving the refugees the rations every day, and often stop to chat.

“I feel sorry for ‘em,” said Specialist Charles Overstreet of Savannah, Ga. “Make the homeless in America look like kings, don’t they?”

The Missing

A Red Cross official in Safwan initially had reported that up to 20 of the 37 journalists missing on a foray to cover the rebellion in Basra might be included in the initial release. But Gian-Battiste Bacchetta, head of the Red Cross committee in Kuwait, said later that the Iraqis had given no indication that they planned to release any journalists.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said: “We hold Iraq responsible for their safety. Unfortunately, it may not be Iraq that has them.”

Earlier claims were made that some rebels were holding journalists, but on Thursday, an Iraqi Shiite leader, the Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr Hakim, was quoted as telling the French ambassador in Iran that the Iraqi government is holding the reporters “for fear that they will spread news of the uprising.”

All foreign journalists were ordered out of Iraq by today, and Baghdad Radio accused the Western press of trying “to belittle every achievement gained by the Iraqis and the Arabs. . . . They offer you a delicious plate of lies mixed with facts and poison mixed with reason.” Reporters allowed to visit Iraqi cities to see allied bombing sites have not been allowed access to cities where anti-Saddam Hussein uprisings are reported.

Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said Thursday that 10 missing U.S. airmen remain unaccounted for. Fourteen others were removed from the list of missing when the wreck of their AC-130 was found. All 14 apparently died in the crash five weeks ago off the coast of Kuwait. The wreckage was still being searched.

Baghdad Warning

Iraqi insurgent leaders alternated claims of successful military standoffs in several Iraqi cities with appeals for help Thursday. An Iraqi Shiite leader in Damascus, Syria, the Ayatollah Mohammed Taqui Mudaressi, said that rioting had also broken out in two Baghdad districts where many poor Shiites live, a statement that could not be verified. Another Shiite leader in Damascus called on “the whole world to help” the rebels. Shiites constitute a 55% majority in Iraq, but President Hussein and his circle are Sunni Muslims.

Two government newspapers warned against division. One said “any tendency to harm this unity would be . . . sabotage,” and another said “everybody who tries to undermine the security of the (Hussein) revolution is a traitor and a mercenary . . . all of them shall regret it. They will pay.”

In Washington, Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that despite rebellions, Hussein “needs to be more concerned about the men in uniform closest to him. It’s OK to have the Republican Guard encircle you. But you want to know whether the guns are pointing in or pointing out.”

And Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren (D-Okla.) said the insurrections have “created a counter-reaction. . . . There are some who don’t particularly like Saddam but who are alarmed by the separatist movement and are willing to live with his brutality because they think he is able to hold the country together.”

Murphy reported from Safwan and Wilkinson from Riyadh. Times staff writer Nick B. Williams Jr. contributed to this story from Damascus.