Asians Iraq

The Jordanian government Wednesday reported a sharp drop in the number of Asian refugees from Kuwait awaiting repatriation, but wrangling continued between the government and international relief organizations amid warnings of another huge wave of refugees massing in Iraq. Updating numbers that have been as inconstant as shifting desert sands since the Asian workers began arriving after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug.

The Jordanian government Wednesday reported a sharp drop in the number of Asian refugees from Kuwait awaiting repatriation, but wrangling continued between the government and international relief organizations amid warnings of another huge wave of refugees massing in Iraq. Updating numbers that have been as inconstant as shifting desert sands since the Asian workers began arriving after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug.

A growing number of Asian countries, forced to deal with thousands of impoverished refugees and financial losses of a billion dollars or more, are beginning to question the hard line the United States and other Western countries are taking in the Persian Gulf crisis, according to diplomats and other officials here.

Listless men and women clad in sarongs lay under pale-green and sand-colored tents Tuesday, seeking relief from the pitiless sun. A few compatriots gathered silently around a single hose to fill cans with water to douse their unquenchable thirst. Across a highway, a dozen men stripped to bathe among the bulrushes in a soupy canal that runs off the Tigris River. A pair of youths dragged the canal with a piece of cloth, hoping in vain to catch a fish.

Listless men and women clad in sarongs lay under pale-green and sand-colored tents Tuesday, seeking relief from the pitiless sun. A few compatriots gathered silently around a single hose to fill cans with water to douse their unquenchable thirst. Across a highway, a dozen men stripped to bathe among the bulrushes in a soupy canal that runs off the Tigris River. A pair of youths dragged the canal with a piece of cloth, hoping in vain to catch a fish.

President Saddam Hussein, in a speech brimming with religious zeal, Wednesday assailed the blockade of his country, while behind the scenes, he cut rations of thousands of foreign workers from the Third World and warned their governments that unless they provide food, the workers will face starvation. "When in history has someone tried to starve people to death by denying them food?" he asked. "When in history have some children died because of a premeditated decision to deny them milk?"

A growing number of Asian countries, forced to deal with thousands of impoverished refugees and financial losses of a billion dollars or more, are beginning to question the hard line the United States and other Western countries are taking in the Persian Gulf crisis, according to diplomats and other officials here.