Wartime Allies Now Combine to Carry Aid to Kurds : Refugees: The number of countries helping reflects the groundswell of Western concern for their plight.

Fine sand from the Arabian desert still dusted the window frames of the hardy British Chinook helicopter, just out of Operation Desert Storm but already back among its old multinational allies as part of Operation Provide Comfort.

Flying day in and day out to deliver aid to Iraqi refugees camped in inaccessible mountains along the Turkish-Iraqi border, some of the crew had not even had time to recover from their front-line missions in the Gulf War.

“I was only back a week. I missed my own coming-home party,” said Flight Lt. Adrian Smith, standing by one of the still-desert-camouflaged helicopters on a remote mountaintop chopper pad at Hakkari in the far southeastern corner of Turkey.

The Chinooks provide only one element of an increasingly multinational, U.S.-led task force being assembled to help feed nearly half a million refugees on the mountains and to build them a safe haven in northern Iraq.

The first party of Dutch Marines entered the northern Iraqi haven near the city of Zakhu on Tuesday, said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Hopkins, a spokesman at the task force’s headquarters at the big U.S. air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey.

They will join more than 1,400 U.S. Marines already in the Zakhu area, as well as French paratroopers, British Royal Marine commandos and Canadian and Italian military engineers who have contributed at least 75 people each so far, Hopkins said.

Many more troops are on the way. Britain may eventually contribute 5,000, British officials say. The Madrid newspaper El Pais reported Tuesday that Spain had decided to send 400 paratroopers and 200 army engineers and medical personnel.

The United States is by far the largest contributor--about 6,800 out of 7,300 people, Hopkins said--but the number of contributors is a clear reflection of the groundswell of Western concern for the refugees, most of whom are Kurds fleeing the Iraqi military after the failure of a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq.

Coordination is still an enormous problem. As late as last weekend, a senior U.S. military aid coordinator in Turkey was surprised to hear from a German aid worker that over 100 German officers were based in a nearby city working on refugee relief.

The logistic power provided by military air transport is a blessing when delivering aid to remote valleys. But the system is expensive and far from perfect, especially in the case of airdrops by big, slow-flying Hercules and Transall aircraft.

Several refugees have been reported crushed to death by pallets loaded with food, water or tents.

“Accuracy is a problem,” said U.S. Special Forces Capt. Damian Walsh, controlling a helicopter pad at Cukurca, south of Hakkari. He said helicopters are increasingly preferred for air delivery, and ground controllers have been stationed in the camps to help direct the transports to their objectives.

Lt. Cmdr. Hopkins said that by Monday, a total of 4,165 tons of supplies had been dropped in 754 air sorties by the multinational task force since April 7. This is still less than half the estimated total delivered to the refugees by local Turkish Kurds on their backs, by mule, by truck or tractor since the massive problem began taking shape last month.

About 40 alliance helicopters are now in the air, but the number may eventually rise to more than 100, most of them powerful U.S.-made Chinooks, Blackhawks or Super Stallions.

Many of the helicopters have appeared to be grounded or inactive recently, but U.S. military spokesmen brush aside reports of fuel and supply shortages. Poor organization seems a more likely reason.

Flight Lt. Smith’s two-hour Chinook trip from his base in Diyarbakir to Hakkari was an exciting flight over snow-capped peaks, smudged with black streaks of oily precipitation from the fires in Kuwait. But in terms of aid, it was mostly a wasted effort.

Two tons of food and medical supplies were delivered to one refugee camp in a river valley, one of the many now effectively controlled by U.S. Special Forces. But a planned run from Cukurca was canceled when the Special Forces controlling the helicopter pad had no supplies for them to load.

“What a shambles,” muttered one British crewman, noting that the operational cost of the twin-engined, 10-ton capacity Chinook is about $10,000 an hour. “I don’t mind doing a job, but I don’t like being messed about. This isn’t exactly helping the people on the ground.”

The first of many U.S. truck convoys, the most cost-efficient and accurate method of distribution, was sent to one Turkish border refugee camp Tuesday.