As U.S.-Kurdish Ties Become Stronger, Americans Strive for a Sense of Balance : Iraq: They must deal with the refugees at arm’s length because building trust risks an increasing level of dependence.

It was a touching moment as ancient ways met modern times and the aging Iraqi Kurdish clan leader approached the terrors of a flight in a top-of-the-line U.S. Blackhawk helicopter.

An American Special Forces captain, trained to kill in a dozen ways but now carrying the gift of a Kurdish elder’s walking cane, gently took the leader by the hand as they stepped aboard the roaring hulk of metal, webbing and heavy machine guns.

The two men had become closer than either could have ever expected after elite U.S. Army Special Forces units took a dominant role in the running of Kayadibi and a dozen similar camps, home to half a million Iraqi refugees along the 200-mile Turkish-Iraqi border.

The American-Kurdish relationship is becoming ever more intertwined as the United States tries to coax the refugees down to the new allied-protected haven, a process that requires the building of trust but risks an increasing level of dependence.

“These people develop blind emotion relationships,” said Robert Finn, a veteran U.S. diplomat in Turkey. Maj. Gen. Jay M. Garner, commander of the coalition task force in northern Iraq, has already warned that withdrawal is going to be a “touchy issue.”

Years of harsh rule by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have scarred the refugees not just with a habitual need for authority but also in other ways.

“You know why we all charge at these food trucks? It’s because Saddam used to keep some food article in short supply, and then, on his birthday or something, he would release it onto the market. Everyone learned to fight for food then,” said Adel, a 23-year-old Christian refugee.

Refugees have been clapping and cheering U.S. Special Forces in the camps, greeting their can-do efficiency and powerful machines as a god-like new leadership. The welcome apparently turned sour when refugees staged a march at a big camp Thursday, shouting slogans condemning the United States.

But this was perhaps not so much a message of hatred but a plea for yet more U.S. protection and commitment organized by some clan leaders, who often adopt positions in line with the defeated anti-Baghdad Iraqi Kurdish guerrilla front, now seeing its fortunes rebound under the allied umbrella.

“The war goes on. If he (Hussein) fights us this time, we’ll rout him. We still have a lot of weapons and ammunition that we captured from him,” a Turkish newspaper was told by Masoud Barzani, the front’s military commander and leader of its main group, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).

Armed guerrillas can be seen lounging in old Iraqi police buildings outside of Zakhu, even though U.S. Marines are trying to keep guns out of the northern Iraqi town. The coalition settles its differences with the guerrillas in talks with a leader known as Gen. Ali, a member of the KDP Central Committee.

When the allies wanted a guerrilla roadblock removed, British Royal Marine Commando Capt. Ian Dunn “had a word” and took Gen. Ali to the spot in a helicopter. The problem was swiftly resolved, British spokesman Lt. Peter Murphy said.

Under a tree near the main coalition headquarters just outside Zakhu, U.S. Special Forces officers in battle fatigues negotiated with a small group of clan leaders from Kayadibi, wearing their khaki or broad-striped national costumes of baggy trousers, tunics and intricately knotted cummerbunds, all topped by tightly wound checkered turbans.

The clan leaders are still unsure about U.S. security guarantees. What was supposed to be a final 5-minute farewell chat dragged on for more than half an hour, the group breaking up and re-forming, with much intense but friendly debate.

The Americans, theoretically in a hurry to find a solution that will allow them to withdraw in the next few months, had already grown used to the idea that at least for the clan leaders time was no object.

“They ask such questions. They are looking at the long term and you can hardly blame them. But I am only a U.S. army captain and I don’t think even (Secretary of State) James Baker could give them the answers they are looking for,” said Special Forces Capt. Mike Smith.

Many clan leaders want the allies to issue them some kind of new registration papers, while the allies are bending over backward to preserve the idea that the area is not a separate Kurdistan but still a part of Iraq.

The Kurds’ ambivalent attitude to authority--fiercely loyal to fiercely independent clans--developed in remote valleys separated by steep mountains. But clan rivalries have been a historic obstacle to the formation of a Kurdish state, exposing the Kurds to permanent outside rule.

To try to remind the Kurds that any foreign-supplied shelter should only be seen as temporary, the first main coalition-run refugee camp at Zakhu has been left without electricity and kept deliberately basic.

Surrounded by piles of allied supplies in the Zakhu camp, U.S. Army Sgt. Tae Kwon of Richmond, Calif., said he thought the danger of being too kind to the friendly children gamboling around him was ever-present.

“If they stay, they’ll get spoiled, dependent on aid. They have to understand that we have to move out sometime,” Kwon said.

In the meantime, other forms of dependence are being discouraged for reasons that could only crop up in the wild and unique mountains of Kurdistan.

“We had to stop giving the children things, because it’s in the culture of the country to give things back,” said Maj. Susan Ives, an army spokeswoman in Zakhu. “The kids were making us presents of the only things they could find: ammunitions, grenades and mines that they were digging up on the border.”