U.S. Troops Enjoying Warm Welcome From Haitians : Military: Friendly response surprises Americans. Challenge for forces is to make sure mission retains support of Caribbean nation’s people.

As large numbers of U.S. troops began to push beyond their landing point into the heart of this capital and the Haitian countryside Friday, the soldiers often found themselves among mobs of joyous Haitians hailing the Americans as liberators.

“This is nothing like what I expected,” said Army Spec. Dominic Iverner of Redondo Beach, wide-eyed as he became caught up in the throng and was pushed far ahead of the rest of his unit. “You can’t describe this feeling.”

With the U.S. operation in Haiti in its fifth day, Iverner’s unit was on the streets of Port-au-Prince for the first time. As military police began regular patrolling, at least three Special Forces units fanned into the countryside to start what officials described as a civil and political assessment of conditions in rural Haiti.

Other U.S. combat and support troops, which have been bulging out of the military’s overcrowded base camp at the Port-au-Prince International Airport, began moving to more permanent quarters. They too were besieged at every turn by crowds of Haitians, who chanted slogans against the local military chiefs and in favor of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The warm response to the soldiers as they moved into the city and began to interact more widely with Haitians clearly caught many of the Americans off guard. Less than one week ago, after all, they been planning to invade the country.

“This really makes me feel proud,” one U.S. sergeant, who asked not to be named, said as he led his small unit through the crowded town. “I think the Haitians I talk to are not so much curious about us as just thankful that we are here.”

U.S. troops also launched patrols Friday in Haiti’s second-largest city, Cap Haitien on the northern coast, but they met with a mixed response. A band serenaded them, but there were also taunts. Marines standing guard at some posts said they even had rocks tossed at them. No one was hurt, and it was not known who threw the rocks.

The forces’ movements came as the U.S. commander, Army Lt. Gen. Hugh Shelton, met again with the Haitian military leader, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, to inform him of U.S. plans and discuss ways in which the Haitian military might cooperate with U.S. forces.

U.S. officials said there are now 8,400 American forces on the ground in Haiti; counting personnel stationed on ships offshore, the total of U.S. service personnel is about 19,000, they said.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili will visit Haiti today to meet with U.S. soldiers, defense officials in Washington said. Perry and Shalikashvili will fly to Port-au-Prince early in the day and return to Washington tonight, the officials said.

Meanwhile, the Port-au-Prince harbor and airport are choked with U.S. materiel, and military cargo flights arrive every few minutes all day and all night. U.S. Army helicopters dominate the skies throughout the city, broadcasting over loudspeakers pleas in Creole for people to remain calm.

Since Tuesday’s attack by Haitian police and army troops against Haitians showing support for the U.S. arrival, Port-au-Prince has been peaceful, and the Haitian police and military are not much in evidence. Haitians on the streets outside the harbor, where the attack occurred, said Friday that the police no longer are willing to commit acts of violence, out of fear of the American military response.

U.S. commanders have told Haitian leaders that further attacks will not be tolerated, and they have given U.S. troops the right to use force to intervene to stop any that do occur.

“It is because the Americans are here that we can stand here and talk,” Louis Gaspard, a 31-year-old Aristide supporter, said as U.S. soldiers stood guard at the harbor entrance nearby. “I hope the Americans stay as long as they like.”

Shelton has not ordered any direct cooperation between U.S. and Haitian forces to keep order in Port-au-Prince or elsewhere in the country. Col. Michael Sullivan, commander of the military police brigade that was patrolling Friday near the airport, the U.S. Embassy and other key facilities, said he now has 500 MPs in the country and expects 500 more. He does not yet have enough to patrol the whole city, he said.

But even when more MPs arrive, senior American military officials said Friday, it is unlikely that U.S. commanders will allow joint patrols between U.S. military police and Haitian police--at least until after Cedras gives up power, which is scheduled to occur Oct. 15. “Think about how that would look,” one senior U.S. officer said.

Officials made it clear that they do not want their soldiers, who have been greeted with such overwhelming enthusiasm, to be identified in any way with the existing Haitian authorities, who are widely feared and hated by Haitian citizens.

Although Aristide has still not fully endorsed the agreement worked out by the Clinton Administration for the departure of Cedras’ military government, U.S. officials still expect the elected president to return to Haiti soon after Oct. 15 as head of a restored government.

Senior U.S. officers, still smarting from the U.S. experience in Somalia--where a warm welcome turned to bitterness and violence--remained cautious about the outlook for long-term relations between Haitians and Americans on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

American officers, who noted that the U.S. military had resisted a Haiti operation, said Friday they are worried about “mission creep” in Haiti, and openly wonder whether the Clinton Administration can remain disciplined and focused enough to keep clear objectives in Haiti.

“It is no secret that the military resisted this operation,” one senior U.S. officer said. “But we in the military are (now) certain of our mission and objectives, and we have made it clear to the White House what we think our mission is.

“I just hope (the Clinton Administration) can develop clear foreign policy objectives, and understand what the end-state (of the Haiti operation) is going to be.”