Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991 TAG: 9104160014
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
U.S. officers said the troops were moving into assembly areas in Saudi Arabia for transfer home. Their withdrawal left in doubt the future of the more than 40,000 refugees who found American and Saudi protection there.
Nearly half of the 540,000 American troops in the Persian Gulf War have left the theater, the U.S. Central Command said.
In announcing on Sunday its intention to withdraw from southern Iraq in a matter of days, the command urged the refugees to move into the demilitarized zone being established along the 120-mile border between Iraq and Kuwait.
The zone is to be monitored by Saddam's attack on Kurds caught U.S. by surprise. A10 1,440 lightly armed U.N. peacekeeping troops, who are to be in place in the next week or two, and many refugees fear that will mean their abandonment to the retribution of Saddam Hussein's forces.
Kuwait, to the south, refuses to admit any unless a third country offers to take them. So far, there have been virtually no offers.
Nearly 30,000 Iraqi refugees are in U.S.-occupied southern Iraq. Another 13,000 live in a Saudi-run camp three miles inside Iraq along the Saudi border.
The Saudis have not commented on what will become of the refugees in their care.
Many refugees fled south after a failed anti-Saddam rebellion. Rebel fighters and sympathizers say returning to Saddam-controlled Iraq will mean certain death for them.
After an international outcry, the White House last week committed 8,000 U.S. servicemen to the temporary aid of the estimated 2 million Kurdish refugees fleeing Saddam's troops after their failed uprising in northern Iraq.
But the United States has remained vague about any lasting commitment to providing for and guaranteeing the safety of Iraqi refugees - especially those in the south.
The command on Sunday offered to move refugees in U.S.-occupied Iraq to the demilitarized zone. Those in the Saudi camp "will remain under the care and protection of the coalition forces until the refugees are moved to a more suitable location," it said.
The refugees are so desperate that they have been trying to surrender to U.S. forces as prisoners of war and have threatened to sit in front of American tanks to block them from leaving.
Meanwhile, the U.S. withdrawal is continuing apace.
American troop strength in the region is now about 290,000, down from a peak of 540,000. It continues to diminish at the rate of 5,000 a day.
Most of the 3,600-member U.S. Army task force that restored basic services to Kuwait City flew out over the weekend, reduced now to a few hundred after 1 1/2 months of work.
The final withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from southern Iraq began Sunday, 88 days after the United States launched a massive air offensive that obliterated much of Saddam's war machine.
U.S. officers said at least 40,000 American troops, perhaps more, are involved in the withdrawal from southern Iraq and that all but a division-sized force of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers will return home as quickly as possible. Exact details were unavailable.
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's Central Command will soon follow, perhaps by the end of April, returning to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., where the general will retire, military sources said.
President Bush, who on Saturday ordered the start of the final withdrawal, has insisted that the United States must not be drawn into Iraq's civil strife - although he personally encouraged it.
"I do not want one single soldier or airman shoved into a civil war that's been going on for ages," he said Saturday at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.
Bush also wanted to avoid a prolonged stay in the gulf for troops already growing restless to get home and was unwilling to risk additional U.S. casualties, sources said.
U.S. casualties in the Persian Gulf War numbered 139 killed in action, 357 wounded in action, six missing in action and 117 killed in non-combat circumstances. Iraqi war dead were estimated by U.S. officers to number as many as 100,000 but there is no official figure or independent confirmation.
by CNB