bash does not read startup scripts on some machines

[Justin]

Hello,

I am using a command line ssh tool called qtssh on windows to connect to 
a redhat server.  qtssh is a command line ssh tool built upon putty that 
is included with the visualization toolkit VisIt.  This tool is designed 
to run commands remotely and does not create an interactive shell.  When 
connecting to the redhat server none of my startup scripts appear to be 
executed (.bashrc, .bash_profile, .profile, etc).  However, if I connect 
to my Debian server the .bashrc file is sourced just fine.  From what I 
can tell ssh is starting a non-interactive and non-login shell.  The 
documentation on what is executed when this type of shell is encountered 
says:  'When  bash  is  started  non-interactively,  to run a shell 
script, for example, it looks for the variable BASH_ENV in the 
environment, expands its value if it appears there, and uses the 
expanded value as the name of a file to read and execute.'  This 
variable is not set on any of the machines i'm on and it is not clear 
how to appropriately set this variable.  Am I correct in assuming that 
this variable needs to be set in order to get the dot files sourced and 
if so where is this variable set?

Thanks,
Justin