U.S. Troubled by Kuwaiti Reprisals : Reconstruction: The emir has been asked to curb revenge attacks. But ‘there’s only so much we can do.’

Revenge attacks by Kuwaiti soldiers and resistance fighters against Palestinians and others have become “a big concern” as the United States pushes for restoration of order in that newly liberated land, Bush Administration officials said Wednesday.

A White House official said that the concerns--stemming from reports of beatings, torture and murder--were raised by Secretary of State James A. Baker III when he met with Kuwait’s emir in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The official said that Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah “assured us he would do his best to prevent people from taking reprisals on their own.”

Administration officials, meanwhile, have taken the position that, in the words of one, “there’s only so much we can do” to stem the attacks.

“I don’t know what we can do except tell the Kuwaitis to look into it and put a stop to it,” he said.

However, a human rights organization has called on the Administration to prevent such attacks, saying that action to stop the abuse is part of the United States’ responsibility as leader of the coalition that freed Kuwait.

The wave of violence, directed at Palestinians, Moroccans and other Arabs and based on sparse suspicion of collaboration with the Iraqi occupiers, has begun to fulfill earlier Administration fears that the Iraqi occupation would be replaced by a second wave of bloodshed and atrocities.

The beatings and interrogations reflect the deep hatred that grew among Kuwaitis toward other Arabs given favorable treatment by Iraqi forces during the seven-month occupation. It also raises questions about the fate of foreign residents who make up a large part of Kuwait’s population.

“There are some pretty shocking stories that have been relayed, and these sorts of things, if they are true, would obviously be of great concern to us,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

He said, as did others, that the United States has been unable to confirm any of the reports and that “senior Kuwaiti officials have assured us that actions of the type described in the news reports this morning are not the policy of their government.”

The reports put the Administration in a difficult position: After supporting the resistance and Kuwaiti military as home-grown members of the anti-Iraq coalition, it is faced with the task of trying to rein them in--or stand by while they practice rough street justice.

“There’s a tension between seeking to shape them a certain way and stepping back and not becoming the governorship over these countries,” said one senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The attacks on suspected collaborators, at a time when the Kuwaiti legal system is far from restored, have drawn increasing attention in recent days. The Times and other media reported Wednesday that hundreds of people arrested over the last two weeks have been dumped at the Iraqi border, many of them having been tortured and brutally beaten by Kuwaiti troops in a secret prison.

Earlier reports that U.S. Special Forces troops stood by without intervening when Kuwaiti soldiers beat up a Palestinian boy prompted the human rights organization Middle East Watch to file a complaint with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

It is the responsibility of the United States “to take measures to protect Palestinians and others in Kuwait, including captured Iraqi soldiers and other officials, from reprisals, revenge attacks and arbitrary actions,” said a March 7 letter to Cheney from Andrew Whitley, executive director of the organization.

On Wednesday, California Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) prepared a letter for the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, Sheik Saud Nasir al Sabah, expressing “extreme concern over reports . . . of beatings, electric shock torture, unlawful death and deportation.

“Our troops did not fight and die to achieve this end,” said Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on international operations.

One White House official said that the Administration feared even before liberation occurred that Kuwaitis might seek revenge.

On Feb. 26, Vice President Dan Quayle reminded young Kuwaiti soldiers completing a brief basic training course at Ft. Dix, N.J., that they must become “champions of human rights and freedom.” The call, a senior aide said, reflected Administration awareness that “Kuwait has not been exemplary in this respect” in the past.

Indeed, in its 1989 report on human rights violations around the world, the State Department found that “there were credible reports of beatings and physical abuse of prisoners in Kuwait’s prisons and deportation centers in 1989.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.