U.N. to Assume Refugee Duties : Iraq: Perez de Cuellar says relief teams will take over the Kurdish camps ‘as soon as possible.’ Bush again bemoans Hussein’s continued hold on power.

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, yielding to the Bush Administration, announced Friday that U.N. relief teams will take over the Kurdish refugee camps in northern Iraq from American troops “as soon as possible.”

At first, the secretary general implied that it is only “a question of days” before the takeover, but he later backed off under questioning by reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. He said he is sending U.N. officials to Geneva and Iraq immediately to work out the details and timing of the transfer.

The U.N. action was a significant victory for President Bush, who authorized the Kurdish relief effort in northern Iraq but has been eager to disentangle American forces from the region as quickly as possible.

Earlier in the day, Bush expressed his satisfaction over the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from a possible confrontation with U.S. forces as well as his frustration over the postwar chaos in Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s continued hold on power there.

Pleased that the Iraqis had complied with the American demand that they pull their soldiers and most of their police out of Zakhu, the site of the first U.S. refugee camp in northern Iraq, Bush said at an impromptu news conference on the White House lawn, “I don’t think Saddam Hussein is dumb enough to want to run into U.S. troops again.”

He said the U.S. troops will remain in place “as long as it takes to be sure these refugees are taken care of, and not a minute longer.”

Despite his obvious satisfaction over the course of the relief operation for the Kurds, the President could not hide his frustration about Hussein’s staying power.

“There will not be normal relations with this man as long as I’m President of the United States. I’ll guarantee you that,” Bush said.

Asked what factors would lead to Hussein’s being overthrown, Bush replied: “The fact that he’s been whipped bad in the military.

“He’s been forced to do that which he said he would never do,” Bush said, referring to Hussein’s forced departure from Kuwait after seven months of occupying the emirate. “His people don’t like him, and it’s only terror that’s keeping him in power. And someday, history will show you these things manage to take care of themselves. And I hope it happens soon because we want him out of there.”

In other Gulf developments:

- Perez de Cuellar informed the U.N. Security Council that he estimates up to 1.8 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes. He said that more than 1 million are now in Iran and 416,000 in Turkey and that 200,000 to 400,000 are still fleeing from their homes in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.

- The death rate among Kurdish refugees streaming into Iran has reached nearly 2,000 a day, Giuseppe de Vincentis, a representative of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Tehran. “The mortality average is still very high here, particularly among children and old people,” De Vincentis said.

- Iraq announced the disbanding of its Popular Army, a part-time militia composed of 1 million volunteers too old or young for regular Iraqi military service. The army was used to occupy parts of Kuwait before the Iraqis were driven out by U.S. and allied forces.

- The Iraqi News Agency also announced that a ban on travel abroad would be lifted May 15. Iraqis were forbidden to travel outside the country for most of the 1980s while the country was at war with Iran. The ban was lifted in early 1990 but reimposed after the Gulf crisis began with the invasion of Kuwait last summer.

- A U.S. C-141 transport plane flew to Iran with 145,000 blankets for refugees, the first official U.S. flight to Iran in years.

The U.N. decision to take over the camps amounted to a reversal of policy by Perez de Cuellar, who previously expressed doubts that the United Nations could enter the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq without a new resolution by the Security Council. Fearful that the council would reject such a resolution as interference in the internal affairs of Iraq, U.S. officials insisted there was no need for one. They said the authority to run such camps was implied in a recent resolution calling for humanitarian aid to the fleeing Kurds.

Bush was obviously satisfied with the turn of events. “The U.N. has a major role to play here,” he said. “Some of the United Nations critics ought to open their eyes because the United Nations not only had a significant role in the repelling of aggression, which was our objective, but it is also playing a significant role in this refugee relief. So, we’re going to continue on that track.”

Perez de Cuellar complained that the United Nations lacks enough funds to carry out “this most complex and most urgent humanitarian challenge” to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees.

“Regrettably, until now, the response to the appeals that have been launched has been very modest, especially for activities inside Iraq,” he told the Security Council.

After briefing the council about the refugee problem, Perez de Cuellar was asked by reporters to clarify his earlier comment that the U.N. personnel will within days replace American soldiers and their allies in running the camps.

“I would like the United Nations to step in as soon as possible,” the secretary general replied. “The position is to dovetail with the coalition operation. We will enter a camp as soon as they withdraw.”

Nevertheless, Perez de Cuellar noted that the transfer will probably entail American soldiers and U.N. relief officials operating in the camp at the same time. “At some stage, there will be a kind of overlapping,” he said. “That is obvious.”

Most specialists doubt that the United Nations could take over the U.S. operation in less than a few weeks. In fact, two U.N.-flagged convoys of relief supplies are not expected to reach Zakhu until the middle of next week, said U.N. spokeswoman Nadia Younes.

The United States and the United Nations have set up what amount to rival relief operations for the Kurds along the Turkish border. Soon after Bush ordered U.S. troops to set up camps for the suffering Kurdish refugees inside northern Iraq, Prince Saddrudin Aga Khan, charged with running U.N. relief operations in the area, signed a separate agreement with the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

The U.N. plan provided for setting up camps or transit stations to encourage the Kurdish refugees to head back to their ravaged home villages inside Iraq. Unlike the U.S. operation, however, the U.N. plan depended on cooperation with the Iraqi government.

Although surprised by the signing of the U.N.-Iraqi relief agreement, U.S. officials insisted that it was a logical extension of their own emergency operation. As soon as the United Nations geared up to take over, the Americans said, the U.S. troops would withdraw.

But U.N. officials initially balked at the suggestion, maintaining that they need authority from the Security Council to do so.

After discussions with U.N. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in New York and with Bush by telephone Thursday, Perez de Cuellar changed his position. He may have been persuaded, as well, by continual demands of the Iraqi government that U.N. personnel take over the American camps, which the Iraqis have branded as an illegal interference in their affairs.

In his comments to reporters on the White House lawn, Bush said, “We’re continuing to pull troops back. I want these kids home, and so do the American people want them home.”

He said Iraq’s dispute with its Kurdish minority is an “internal matter” that “has been going on for years and years.”

“One good way to end it was to have somebody with a little more compassion as president of Iraq. But that’s . . . let them worry about that problem. I worry about it because there won’t be normal relations until he’s gone. But history has a way of taking care of tyrants,” the President added.

Asked what will happen when the U.S. troops leave the region, Bush said: “I don’t know that there’s going to be lasting peace in Iraq. Peace has escaped those people for years. I would hope, though, that the lesson having been taught to Saddam Hussein about aggression, some of that lesson might spill over in terms of his own internal problems.

“I would hope that maybe out of the talks he’s having with the Kurdish leaders you’ll see some long-sought-after peace. But I can’t certify that.”