U.S. Troops Reoccupy Deepest Iraqi Positions : Tactics: The move is seen as a warning to Hussein to deal cautiously with rebels or face a new confrontation.

American troops, ordered to reoccupy positions that they had held briefly but then abandoned, are driving as much as 30 miles deeper into Iraqi territory, a top U.S. military commander said Thursday.

Elements of the 101st Airborne and the 1st Cavalry divisions are moving to reclaim their most advanced positions in the Euphrates River Valley, said Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal, deputy director of operations for the U.S. Central Command.

“The purpose is to maintain a presence until the cease-fire is agreed to,” Neal said in an interview.

The move appears to be part of President Bush’s effort to increase pressure on Saddam Hussein as the Iraqi leader struggles to put down widespread revolts against his regime. Bush already has signaled that U.S. forces may resume air attacks if Baghdad uses chemical weapons against rebels and has warned Hussein to stop using his helicopter forces to put down resistance.

The territory along the Euphrates is the northernmost part of a vast area of southern Iraq seized by U.S. and allied forces during the violent, four-day ground offensive that forced Hussein to relinquish his occupation of Kuwait.

The river valley region was vacated as 101st Airborne and 1st Cavalry units began to move southward in anticipation of an ultimate American withdrawal from Iraq, once Hussein’s government had come to terms with allied officials on a final cease-fire accord.

In ordering U.S. forces to reoccupy the territory, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, made clear that “he wanted them on that ground,” Neal said.

The reassertion of the American chokehold over much of southern Iraq appears to be intended to send a clear signal to Hussein that he must exercise caution in dealing with the domestic rebellion or risk another confrontation with U.S. forces.

In Washington, Bush Administration officials acknowledged that the United States intends to maintain military pressure on Hussein’s government, even if doing so indirectly undercuts the Iraqi leader’s efforts to put down the insurrectionists.

“This behavior is clearly inconsistent with the type of behavior the international community would like to see Iraq exhibiting,” said Pentagon spokesman Bob Hall. “Iraq has to convince the world that its designs, both against the international community and its own population, are not military and aggressive.”

Hall said U.S. military units are maintaining a visible presence in Iraq in part to provide “an incentive for the Iraqis to meet the U.N. standards” under which a permanent cease-fire would take effect.

“I think it makes common sense that we are not going to walk away from a situation having accomplished what we have accomplished and let it be reversed,” he said.

The reluctance of Hussein’s government to embrace remaining U.N. resolutions addressing its occupation of Kuwait has stirred debate within the Administration about the wisdom of having called off hostilities when it did.

“I think the Bush Administration was premature in calling the cease-fire at a time when it was so clear that the Iraqi troops were so badly beaten and there was so little likelihood they could recommence hostilities,” said retired Army Col. Trevor DuPuy, a Washington-area military analyst and historian.

DuPuy said there is ample precedent for a victorious force maintaining military pressure over a defeated power to ensure the loser’s compliance with cease-fire terms. After World War I, for instance, allied troops remained within a day’s march of German forces as they retreated across the Rhine. Although Germany was barely able to comply with the allies’ armistice conditions, they did so “because the allies kept up the pressure,” said DuPuy.

On other occasions, however, continued military pressure has resulted in a resumption of hostilities. In 1847, when cease-fire negotiations between the United States and Mexico failed to bring the Mexicans into line with U.S. demands, Gen. Winfield Scott resumed the fighting.

“In this case, I don’t see any need to refine the conditions” to justify the maintenance of forceful pressure,” DuPuy said. “All we need to do is say to Iraq, ‘You haven’t produced.’ ”

One knowledgeable Pentagon official noted, however, that the reoccupation of the Euphrates River Valley territory also appears to correct a hastier-than-expected rear movement by U.S. military commanders.

American commanders have been anxious, in the wake of their victory, to reposition themselves in areas that are closer to their supplies and where land mines and unexploded ordnance do not pose daily threats to U.S. soldiers, the official said.

Even so, he said, the withdrawal from the river valley area now appears to have been a mistake. “You’ve got to secure your frontier there,” said the official. “They’re still obligated to keep their forces in the best positions. We don’t have a cease-fire yet.”

In Saudi Arabia, Neal agreed that the decision to move troops back to the river valley does not represent a change of strategy, noting that the Army divisions may have been premature in beginning to consolidate occupation forces.

“We had agreed from the very beginning that we would leave our forces in Iraq in the positions they were at the cessation of hostilities,” Neal said. “It was just either a misunderstanding by the U.S. forces or a feeling that they could redeploy and still use helicopters to cover the areas they initially occupied.”

The two Army units are among six U.S. divisions containing more than 100,000 men occupying Iraqi territory. Some of the U.S. troops are positioned within a few dozen miles of Iraq’s second city of Basra, the site of repeated clashes between government and rebel forces.

Fighting in Basra has been particularly fierce, and the American forces nearest to it are said to be maintaining an alert against possible exposure to chemical weapons that Hussein loyalists might use against rebels or that might be accidentally exploded in the uprising.

American military officials in Saudi Arabia have been keeping a close watch over developments in Iraq, and Neal said there have been new indications that Hussein is encountering difficulties in trying to use his war-torn military to put down the rebellion.

“What he has now is really a quilt-work of an armed forces, and he doesn’t have the force structure he had to work with before,” the American general said.

“He may contain a problem in Basra, but then he might have another problem in another city, and he has to use that same force structure to quell it there, and then Basra flares up again.

“So he just doesn’t have enough forces to be able to put the lid on all of these eruptions caused by a disenchanted populace plus, I think, the return of some of the troops that suffered the defeat on the battlefield,” Neal said.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this report.

Squeezing Saddam U.S. 101st Airborne and 1st Cavalry move 30 miles into Iraq’s Euphrates River valleyas unrest continues in north and south.