U.S. Steps Up Pullout From Gulf : Military: Troop strength has declined to 330,000. Concern for Iraqi refugees mounts.

With a formal cease-fire seemingly close at hand, the United States is stepping up the withdrawal of its forces from the Persian Gulf, and on Sunday, it began pulling back thousands of American soldiers from occupied southern Iraq.

The withdrawal from Iraq of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment--the forward-most American unit in that country--may signal the beginning of the end of significant U.S. presence in southern Iraq. It also heightens concerns about thousands of refugees who have sought protection from the American forces.

Overall, U.S. troop strength in the Gulf declined to 330,000 from 365,000 just three days before, thanks in part to the departure of the aircraft carrier America.

Until now, military commanders had said that troops were going home at a pace of 3,000 to 5,000 a day, from a wartime high of 540,000.

“We are exceeding our planned timetable at this time,” Lt. Gen. William Gus Pagonis, in charge of the logistics of sending people and equipment home, said.

“It’s going out probably three times faster than anybody would have thought. . . .”

He was referring primarily to the movement of the tons of vehicles, helicopters and leftover ammunition being shipped home daily as troops come in from the desert.

In southern Iraq, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, an element of the U.S. VII Corps, prepared to return to Saudi Arabia for its eventual redeployment to Germany. The VII Corps is the last major fighting force in occupied Iraq, after the departure last month of the XVIII Corps.

Many of the XVIII Corps’ soldiers who fought in Iraq have already gone home, Pagonis said. The most recent withdrawals from Iraq reduce the number of troops in that region to about 95,000, military sources said.

A high-ranking military official said the 2nd Armored Cavalry unit, which totals 5,000 to 6,000 men, will move out of Iraq today, but soldiers in the field told reporters they had orders to start the process Sunday.

Military spokesmen characterized the withdrawal as part of an overall redeployment plan that would leave sufficient manpower in Iraq to patrol the demarcation line between Iraq and Kuwait until a 300-member U.N. peacekeeping force arrives.

Nevertheless, as the Americans withdraw, concern mounts for the fate of an estimated 40,000 Iraqi refugees to whom the troops have given food and medical care.

Many fled civil warfare in their towns or are escaping the hunger said to be rampant in war-ravaged Iraq.

“Once there’s a cease-fire, what happens to these people?” asked a Western diplomat based in Riyadh. “Who protects them from the wrath of Saddam? You’ve got a potential mess.”

The United States has not yet offered any plan for the refugees, many of whom fear reprisals simply because they accepted U.S. food and medicine. Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security adviser, pledged Sunday that “we will not abandon those people.”

He suggested that the refugees could enter a demilitarized zone along the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border under protection of the U.N. peacekeeping force.

Military officials have suggested that the International Committee of the Red Cross would fill the void left once American troops are gone, but the relief agency says there is little it can do beyond supplying food, medicine and other assistance.

Red Cross spokesman Nicolas Sommer, in a telephone interview from Geneva, said the displaced Iraqis cannot claim refugee status because they are still within the borders of their homeland. And, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, they will come under the authority of Baghdad once the occupying forces are gone.

“If they are Iraqis, they come under the purview of the Iraqi government,” Sommer said. “It’s as deceptively simple as that.”

Pagonis, who will replace Desert Storm commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf after his expected departure this month, said men, women and materiel are leaving the Gulf on an average of between one and two cargo ships and 30 airlifts a day. The cargo includes, among other things, 235,000 tons of unused ammunition.

About half of the Air Force’s original contingent of 56,000 people, and 40,000 of the Navy’s 82,000, have gone home, military officials say.

Only two U.S. aircraft carriers--the Ranger, out of San Diego, and the Theodore Roosevelt, from Norfolk, Va.--remain in the Gulf after the departure of the America, which is also based at Norfolk.