MUTUAL DILEMMAS

There will still be more than 200,000 American troops sweltering in southern Iraq, even after the planned withdrawal of 20,000 men by mid-April. Unavoidably, the US troops have become elements in Iraq's civil war. More and more Iraqi refugees, needing all the necessities of life, have flooded into American camps, escaping from President Saddam Hussein's merciless assertion of authority over the rebellious Shia population of the south. The thousands of refugees, most without any resources of their own, need all the basic necessities of life and there is no- one to whom they can turn except the American troops.