Country Girds for Potential Terrorism : Threat: With winds of war blowing, precautions intensify from coast to coast.

In Beverly Hills, shopkeepers and customers were quickly evacuated Thursday as the sheriff’s bomb squad ran a robot machine down trendy Rodeo Drive to remove a suspicious package that later turned out to be “innocent in nature.”

To the far north, operators of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline tightened personnel inspections and installed electronic monitoring devices along the 800-mile line. And in Florida, crews preparing for the Super Bowl in Tampa later this month built a concrete barricade around the football stadium to stop any vehicles from smashing through.

With war jitters escalating, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in Southern California and across the nation shifted into an ever-heightening alert, worrying that the U.S. military bombing of Iraq, and the subsequent missile attack on Tel Aviv, could trigger terrorist retaliation against the United States.

No violence or injuries were reported Thursday. But the winds of war were blowing, and the public, alerted by police to the potential for danger, was bracing for possible terrorist strikes here. For many people, frightened by bomb scares and other threats around the nation, there was a growing call to batten down the hatches.

George A. Morrison, the Los Angeles Police Department’s chief of staff, met Thursday with 125 city department heads. While urging them to be cautious, he also advised: “Don’t get paranoid. But at the same time, don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.”

Other warnings were echoed in Washington, where Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that war with Iraq poses “the greatest threat of terrorism we’ve probably had” in the United States.

“We know that there are a lot of people out there who are sponsored by Iraq and others,” he said. “We also have a lot of free-lancers, people who feel very, very strongly and emotionally, and in some cases they may be the most difficult to detect.”

So widespread are the concerns, the outbreak of hostilities and fears of terrorist acts have prompted a rash of calls to private companies that provide security services. “Our phones are ringing off the hook,” said Pete Sawyers, director of marketing for the Pinkerton agency in Van Nuys.

Lawrence G. Lawler, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Los Angeles, said Thursday that his agents will join in a national effort to locate and interview 3,000 Iraqi nationals who have overstayed their visas to ascertain why they continue to remain in the United States.

“There’s no roundup, just interviews,” an FBI source in Washington emphasized. “A lot of these people could be dissenters to Saddam Hussein, and it’s not the intention of the United States to put them in harm’s way.”

Such persons can be expelled for security reasons, but a leader in the Iraqi-American community, UCLA Prof. Yasin Al-Khalesi, suggested that many of them were caught in a dilemma.

He said they might be unable or unwilling to return to Iraq because of the war, and at the same time be afraid that if they asked for visa extensions, they would be turned down.

“I would assume that because they came for a visit, they are afraid to go back to Baghdad,” the professor said.

As tensions rose, police were called out numerous times to investigate strange packages, respond to bomb threats and allay public fears.

The Beverly Hills incident began shortly before 10 a.m. when the manager of the Louis Vuitton luggage store on Rodeo Drive arrived to find a sealed shopping bag in the front doorway of the shop. Above the package, taped on the door, was a piece of notebook paper with the word gifts written in blue ink.

A team of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arson and explosives detail closed off the streets and evacuated shoppers from stores in the immediate vicinity.

The mysterious paper bag was picked up by a remote-controlled robot with a retractable arm and taken to a vacant lot in nearby Franklin Canyon.

There, after detonating the still-sealed bag, deputies sifted through the remnants and determined that the bag had contained a pillow and a blank diary.

“There is nothing to indicate it was a terrorist act,” said Beverly Hill Police Lt. Frank Salcido.

Whether or not the gesture was meant to frighten, it did.

“Fake or not fake, these kinds of acts can damage you,” said Behaz Mahdavi, senior art consultant at a nearby gallery. “They can create such anxiety in the community. . . . With all that’s going on, people aren’t comfortable talking business. Everyone is paying attention to the war.”

Also on Thursday, authorities issued an all-points bulletin for the arrest of an Iraqi national wanted on charges of possessing explosives and fleeing to avoid prosecution. Duraid Sadio Azawi, who officials said claims to be the son of an Iraqi air force general, was reportedly twice seen Tuesday driving a black Mazda near March Air Force Base in Riverside and the Naval Warfare Assessment Center in Norco.

A similar car was spotted briefly again in Northern California on Wednesday, near Williams, the California Highway Patrol said.

Meanwhile, in the Southland, about 900 Internal Revenue Service and other government workers were evacuated from the Federal Building in the Santa Ana Civic Center after a telephone bomb threat while anti-war protesters demonstrated on the sidewalk outside.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad conducted a sweep of the nine-story building but found no incendiary devices, officials said.

“I feel like it’s a threat against the American government,” said Sharon Aussear, an employee with the Defense Department who was among those standing outside waiting to return to work.

At the Los Angeles Police Department, Sgt. Dan Holmes said that a new anti-terrorist telephone hot line--(213) 485-2570--is receiving numerous calls, and that authorities estimated that about five calls an hour merit further investigation. He said many of the calls are from tipsters with reports of possible suspects who have guns or of gun shops selling weapons to potentially dangerous people.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Engineer Donald Manning said city firefighters are taking extra precautions when responding to emergency calls. “Unfortunately,” he told the Board of Fire Commissioners on Thursday, “explosive devices don’t look like bombs. They look like 50-gallon drums or a plumber’s pipe.”

And, he added: “Anyone can leave a package at a station.”

In San Francisco, a Bay Area Rapid Transit District police officer noticed a duffel bag in the bottom of a trash receptacle at the system’s Civic Center station, near where demonstrators have laid siege to the Federal Building, BART spokesman Sy Mouber said.

The BART officer alerted the San Francisco police bomb squad, which determined that the bag was empty, and the station was reopened, Mouber said.

Times staff writers Laurie Becklund, Sonni Efron, Martha Groves, John H. Lee, Ronald J. Ostrow, Ronald L. Soble and Mark A. Stein contributed to this report.