U.S. Tries to Adapt Role as Haiti Unrest Grows : Caribbean: Attempts to end clashes, looting fail as confusion rises. Americans say police will be disarmed.

With their tactics and rules changing by the day and the hour, U.S. forces took futile steps Saturday to stop looting and searched seven sites for illegal weapons. But U.S. commanders left the city largely in the hands of the remnants of the Haitian police force and the same civilian gunmen who had brutally crushed a mass pro-democracy rally 24 hours before.

Teams of U.S. Army combat soldiers, acting on what a military source called “unreliable sources,” visited homes and even one 30-acre estate in search of hidden arms caches belonging to civilian police operatives.

U.S. Ambassador William L. Swing said a disarmament campaign is under way to dismantle the brutal police and paramilitary apparatus, but the military source said Saturday’s searches were not part of an aggressive new disarmament policy.

Elsewhere in the city, U.S. Army military police were dispatched to cordon off stores and warehouses to chase off looters, who quickly returned to finish their work after the U.S. forces left. At one warehouse, security guards hired by the owner opened fire on the local slum dwellers after the Army had gone, injuring at least seven, including several children.

After three days of isolated and persistent looting and three brutal, state-sponsored attacks on pro-democracy demonstrators that left at least 13 dead and 105 wounded, confusion reigned among many Haitians about the direction the U.S. military mission is taking.

As Defense Secretary William J. Perry told reporters that he expects more bloodshed, commanders on the ground said their mission is “evolving” as they adapt their rules of operation to react to events.

Commanders and U.S. officials said the apparent confusion was the result of a delicate balancing act: an attempt to check police and military brutality while maintaining those institutions long enough to prevent a vacuum of law and order.

Amid the uncertainty, many Haitians have begun to wonder which side the United States came to protect, particularly after armed police agents known as attaches clubbed, stoned and shot pro-democracy demonstrators Friday as they marked the third anniversary of the military coup.

Disarming the attaches has been the top demand of Haiti’s overwhelming majority of poor, who have borne the brunt of regime brutality that human rights groups say has left thousands dead.

Other scenes on the capital’s streets Saturday appeared to reinforce the confusion.

When throngs of impoverished Haitians stormed and pillaged a warehouse owned by a suspected military officer near the capital’s port, U.S. military police were dispatched with Haitian police in tow.

When the MPs arrived--advising the Haitian officers how to respond--police launched tear gas and, within 10 minutes, managed to restore order. But when the MPs took up positions around the warehouse with the Haitian police, it reinforced the Haitians’ growing suspicion that the U.S. Army had begun to back the wrong side in their mission to restore stability, democracy and ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

At the same time, armed police agents still controlled the streets, brandishing weapons and threatening to disrupt future demonstrations. Aristide supporters were forced to cancel a demonstration scheduled for Saturday rather than risk a repeat of the carnage.

“People are out now because they think the Americans will protect them,” said Pierre Yvans Delsoin, 34, who spent 17 days in jail earlier this year for allegedly supporting Aristide. “But the GIs said they are not here to give us security. The American military presence should have reduced the violence, but the contrary is happening.”

There was no immediate evidence of increased U.S. military patrols or a beefed-up U.S. presence in the capital after Perry told reporters traveling with him in Europe that Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city, would be “blanketed” to curb violence during the next two weeks in advance of Aristide’s expected Oct. 15 arrival.

Military commanders on the ground, however, indicated that their tactics are changing as rapidly as the mood and events in the streets.

Their decision not to stop the state-sponsored bashing of Aristide supporters also may soon change, several commanders and U.S. officials indicated.

“Our rules are changing as we speak,” Lt. Col. Otis Cooksey, the battalion commander for the MPs, said as his men carried out his latest order to stop the looting and disperse the crowds. “It’s an evolving mission.”

Asked whether it was also “mission impossible,” Cooksey smiled and said: “Let’s say it’s a very challenging situation that we have. Right now, we’re working with the Haitian police, trying to keep them together until the situation is stable enough for the legitimate government to take power and an interim multinational force to be in place.”

U.S. officials in Port-au-Prince took pains to stress the achievements of less than two weeks: the reconvening of the Haitian Parliament; the return of the capital’s elected mayor after two years in hiding; the peaceful seizure of state radio and television from military-installed managers, and the homecoming of hundreds of refugees.

Ambassador Swing emphasized the same list of successes to two visiting congressional delegations, who met with U.S. commanders and Haitian political leaders.

As Swing met with the group, he told reporters the weapons-seizure campaign was under way. “We are . . . going after caches of arms in the country, trying to get under inventory and lock and key the weapons of what I would call paramilitary apparatus of the country,” he said.

The campaign offered mixed results. During a scheduled visit to the Kilik Naval Base, troops were invited in by Haitian officials and confiscated 119 M-1 rifles, two M-60 machine guns and 55 bolt-action rifles.

But the raids on houses based on the “unreliable sources” had a different outcome.

At the decaying estate of dancer/choreographer Katherine Dunham, several hundred combat-ready troops swarmed over the lush property for hours in search of an arms cache. They were acting on a tip from a notorious anti-Aristide paramilitary member who was arrested Friday and claimed that Aristide supporters were hiding weapons on the estate.

The Army lay barbed wire across the stone path leading to the gated property and assumed combat positions. Tanks and Humvees were stationed nearby as military intelligence officers questioned the workers on the estate, which has a small guest house and is a center for aspiring dancers and artists.

Among those interrogated was Micka Normil, who works with the dancers. “They told me that if I wanted to see my mother and my father again, I’d better talk,” Normil said. “They kept asking me, ‘Where are the guns?’ I said, ‘Here we have no guns. Here we dance.’ ”

In the Petionville section of the capital, one man did have a gun, but the Army wouldn’t accept it.

A company of 10th Mountain troops that had stopped at a supermarket turned down an attache offering to sell them his M-1 carbine rifle. He appeared while several soldiers were inside the Big Star Market buying mops, brooms and laundry soap. A sergeant told him he wasn’t authorized to buy the weapon under the Army’s guns-for-money program, and he referred him to headquarters.

“But I have no transportation,” the attache said.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t take you,” the sergeant said. “We have no authority.”