Pentagon Rejects Role as Refugees’ Protector : Iraq: A rapid pullout of U.S. forces will continue despite fears of a slaughter by Hussein’s loyalists.

WASHINGTON —  A growing fear that thousands of Iraqi refugees under allied protection will be slaughtered when U.S. troops go home will not affect plans to remove most American forces as rapidly as possible, Administration officials said Monday.

Pentagon officials said the United States will not assume responsibility for the safety of an estimated 25,000 Iraqi civilians who fled their homes in southern Iraq as loyalist forces systematically crushed an insurgency.

“The bottom line here is, if you’re suggesting we would stay purely for a purpose of protecting the refugees, we won’t,” a senior Defense Department official said Monday. “We would try to find another arrangement for them. There are other vehicles--U.N. observers, other international bodies--that are more appropriate.”

But another military official said that the U.S. troops will move whether or not international relief agencies assume responsibility for the civilians.

“This is the chaos that occurs in war, particularly when there is a civil war going on simultaneously,” a senior military official said. “After we leave, we are under no obligation to them. You can say coldheartedly that legally we could turn every one of these people away, but at the same time you see men, women and children starving and without water, and you must show compassion and do something.”

This official complained that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations have been slow to organize relief efforts.

“We are trying to find a medium of compromise” with the Red Cross to provide shelter and some measure of security, the official added.

Refugees fleeing areas of fighting between rebels and Iraqi forces have charged that government soldiers have massacred women and children. U.S. Army scouts recently reported that Iraqi Republican Guard troops in Samawah, in southern Iraq, shelled a hospital and refugee camp and rocketed and strafed civilians from a helicopter gunship.

Iraqi civilians technically are not refugees under the U.N. definition because they are still in their own country. If they cross the border into Kuwait, they might qualify. But it seems unlikely that Kuwait would be willing to accept very many of them, if any. In addition to the Iraqis, the civilians who have sought American protection include Palestinians and others who were expelled from Kuwait after the Persian Gulf War.

U.S. officials said last week that some of the Iraqis arrived at U.S. positions with weapons and may have participated in anti-government uprisings, sparking fear that Saddam Hussein’s troops will exact retribution within the refugee camps. Others are thought to be Iraqi soldiers who refused to participate in Baghdad’s campaign of repression against rebels and thus also would be likely candidates for government reprisal.

Pentagon officials and military commanders on the scene in Iraq expressed anguish about the plight of the Iraqi refugees but said that the United States has no intention of involving itself in the fierce civil war.

“I certainly am fearful that if we pull out, the blood bath will get worse,” said Maj. Gen. Ronald H. Griffith, commander of the 1st Armored Division, which now occupies part of southern Iraq.

“At least now there is a place to run,” Griffith said in an interview. “If we leave, there won’t be a sanctuary.”

American troops manning checkpoints in southern Iraq have received about 5,000 Iraqis as prisoners in the last three days, a senior U.S. military source said in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital.

They include a number of Iraqi soldiers who were first taken prisoner during the war, were repatriated by the Red Cross and are once again ending up in American hands.

U.S. officials have received reports that some former POWs--especially those who surrendered or deserted--were shot upon returning to Iraq while others were pressed into military service in the fight to put down civil unrest. The reports could not be independently verified.

The plight of the refugees adds a poignant footnote to a growing controversy over President Bush’s decision to avoid involvement in Iraq’s civil war. Rebel commanders, joined by American critics, have accused the President of leaving the Iraqi insurgents to their fate after encouraging them to try to overthrow Hussein.

“We have obligations to a lot of Iraqi (rebels), not just the ones who are geographically close enough to make a direct claim on our power,” said William B. Quandt, a former National Security Council expert on the Middle East. “Those who happen to be a little further away from us (and thus cannot reach American lines) were just as much encouraged by us as the others.

“They will all be treated the same: We are not going to do anything,” he added. “We’re stuck with an impossible situation no matter what we do.”

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the U.S. government has made no decision on what to do with the Iraqis who have reached U.S. lines. For the time being, he said, “the U.S. military, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent and . . . some other international organizations are in that area taking care of people, and we are in touch with various international organizations that would have a role in taking care of refugees in that area.”

But Boucher said Bush has “made very clear that we don’t think that we, or any others for that matter, should interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq, nor should we try to choose what sort of government there should be in the future in Iraq.”

Boucher said the Administration is evaluating requests for meetings with Kurdish and Shiite representatives, the Washington Post reported. He said some meetings would probably take place next week with officials of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.

As long as the U.S. occupation continues, U.S. forces expect to provide medical care, food and--perhaps most important--protection to those who have fled into American control.

But high-ranking officers said that the U.S. presence in Iraq is to be reduced sharply in the next 10 days, even if a formal cease-fire agreement is not reached. These officers expressed concern that continued withdrawal would leave a dangerous void.

Under the withdrawal plan, senior officers said, only the 3rd Armored Division and its 19,000 soldiers are scheduled to remain in Iraq after April 12. Its primary purpose would be to maintain American control of the Rumaila oil field to ensure that Iraq pays reparations to Kuwait.

Broder reported from Washington and Jehl from Iraq. Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and Tracy Wilkinson in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.