What Is Left of Kuwait?

By Richard Zoglin

For the exiled Kuwaitis who have been waiting more than six months for the liberation of their country, the roller-coaster events of last week unleashed contradictory emotions. On the one hand, there were feelings of anticipation, even joy, that a return to their homeland was imminent. But many also shared a sense of foreboding at what they would find when they arrived. "For me, Kuwait was a paradise," says Anwar Alduiaj, who manufactured ladies' clothing in Kuwait City before the Iraqi invasion. "Suddenly, the country our grandfathers built for us in 50, 60 years collapsed in hours. And it went from a paradise to a hell."

What is left of Kuwait? And what will it take to rebuild the country after the Iraqis are forced out of Kuwait? Precise answers will not become clear until allied troops actually march into Kuwait City, the capital, economic center and home to 80% of Kuwait's prewar population of 2 million. Before last week, sketchy reports seeping out of the occupied emirate portrayed a country that had sustained much damage and disruption but was far from devastated. That picture, however, may have been tragically altered by the billowing clouds of smoke emanating from Kuwaiti oil wells late last week, part of what President Bush denounced as Saddam's "scorched earth" policy.

Pentagon officials claimed on Saturday that Saddam's forces had set fire to at least 200 oil wells -- which along with about 100 wells that were sabotaged earlier account for 25% of all such facilities in the country. Pilots returning from bombing missions reported that a blanket of thick smoke was covering all of the country south of Kuwait City, reaching from the gulf on the east to the Saudi border on the west.

Some Pentagon officials suggested that the new fires might have been started by the Iraqis as a last-ditch defensive strategy, to try to impede visibility for a final allied offensive. But U.S. military planners said they could circumvent any such tactics. The Iraqi actions seemed to be aimed more at crippling Kuwait's oil-producing capacity. U.S. officials reported that other oil-related facilities and shipping terminals had been damaged as well, with the intention, in President Bush's words, of "destroying the entire oil- production system of Kuwait."

Oil experts say that is not likely to happen. Although putting out the fires could be a difficult and time-consuming task, Kuwait's 94.5 billion-bbl. oil reserves will hardly be dented. Depending on how much damage has been done to other facilities, production could resume within six months after the end of hostilities, Kuwaiti officials say -- though it may be years before output reaches prewar levels. "They will not lose enough to threaten their reserves or their economy or the world oil market in the long term," said an American oil expert.

Although the Administration may be exaggerating the Iraqis' scorched-earth tactics for political purposes, the destruction was nonetheless alarming. Until then, physical damage wreaked on Kuwait had seemed relatively light. Though allied bombs have hit the country repeatedly during the five-week air campaign, pilots have carefully avoided most important buildings and residential neighborhoods in the capital. Nor had the Iraqis, before last week at least, inflicted any wholesale physical destruction on the city. U.S. satellite photos taken a week ago revealed that nearly all government buildings in Kuwait City were still standing. One exception: the communications ministry, which had been heavily damaged by the Kuwaiti resistance in an effort to cut off the Iraqis' telephone-monitoring ability. The port facilities in and around the capital, as well as the airport, also appeared to be largely intact. But the Iraqi occupiers have reportedly killed hundreds of people, and by last weekend had instituted a new wave of executions and civilian roundups, according to U.S. intelligence and other reports.

Accounts from Kuwaiti refugees and members of the resistance inside the city suggest that the social fabric of the country has been rent in numerous ways. Homes and hospitals have been looted, and garbage is overflowing the streets. With little drinking water available, residents have been distilling water from the gulf. Only about one-fourth of the prewar population is estimated to have remained in the country, and those Kuwaitis have been joined by an undetermined number of Iraqi civilians who have moved into abandoned Kuwaiti homes as part of Saddam's plan to annex the country as Iraq's 19th province.

Retaking Kuwait City by force would be one of the trickiest battles of the allied campaign. Though the Iraqis have relatively little heavy armor inside the city, troops have reportedly embedded themselves in buildings and homes and planted vast numbers of booby traps. Routing them out could be a difficult and costly enterprise, as the allies learned in the battle to recapture the Saudi town of Khafji. "It takes a long time to take a city -- unless you destroy it," says a Western military attache in Riyadh. "You have to go street by street, house by house. It could take weeks."

To avoid that scenario, and the heavy civilian casualties that might result, the allied strategy would probably involve encircling the city, cutting off the Iraqis who remain there, and simply waiting them out. "The last thing we want to do is engage in urban warfare," says one senior Pentagon officer. "That's a formula for civilian death and destruction."

The fact that 250,000 Palestinians (out of an estimated prewar population of 400,000) have remained in Kuwait City raises other thorny problems. Scores of Palestinians have been identified as collaborators who joined the Iraqis in looting the city and turned in Kuwaitis, who were then murdered in front of their families. Some Kuwaiti exiles have promised to take revenge once the country is reoccupied. "Sabra and Shatila were nothing," vow many Kuwaiti exiles, referring to the 1982 slaughter of hundreds of people in Palestinian refugee camps after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The extent of Palestinian collaboration has probably been exaggerated. Though Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been among the strongest backers of Saddam's invasion, the vast majority of Palestinians in Kuwait are believed to have stayed neutral during the occupation. And some have supported the resistance.

Opposition to the Iraqis was extremely well organized in part because it was built around clandestine groups that existed before the occupation. In addition to Shi'ite Muslims opposed to the Emir, these include members of Arafat's Fatah guerrilla organization and Hamas, a more extreme Palestinian group that has been a key participant in the intifadeh in the Israeli-occupied areas. In addition, Ahmed Jibril's pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command has detonated car bombs at Iraqi targets in Kuwait City.

Some of the Shi'ite resistance members are believed to have been part of a secret organization set up by Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. They were there not to support the ruling family of the Emir, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, but to topple it. When the Emir fled the country, however, the same Shi'ites, including women in chadors, came out to demonstrate, brandishing photographs of the Emir. "You shouldn't be surprised at this," said a Western diplomat who lived in Kuwait. "In the Middle East, groups can change sides very quickly."

For political reasons, Kuwaiti forces have been assured they will be in the front lines as the coalition troops march into Kuwait City. But other allied soldiers will be alongside, watching them closely. "There is a very strong danger that the Palestinians will be massacred," said a U.S. official in Riyadh. "It is a major consideration, and there has been a lot of planning to avoid it."

The strength of the underground groups in Kuwait could also complicate the restoration to power of the ruling family. Some resistance leaders are nearly as opposed to the Emir as they are to the Iraqis; if they manage to seize control of the capital before the allies arrive, they might demand democratic concessions from the ruling family. "The politics of liberation are very complex," said a Western diplomat. "It could take place on the terms of the Kuwaiti resistance." The ruling Sabah family has promised to respect the constitution of 1962 by holding parliamentary elections sometime after liberation. But the exiled opposition and resistance leaders are skeptical. The crown prince, Sheik Saad, has said he may install martial law first.

Not until these political problems are sorted out can the process of putting Kuwait back together again commence. The extent of that task will not be clear , until the war is over and the damage can be surveyed. A lot depends on how much more fighting takes place, and how much more damage the Iraqis choose to inflict on the country as they exit. But the Kuwaiti government-in-exile has hired the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to lead the cleanup and repair operation for the first 90 days. Companies in several allied countries are already fighting for pieces of the lucrative construction work that lies ahead. Estimates of the cost of rebuilding Kuwait range as high as $100 billion. The Kuwaiti government may have to sell off some of its huge foreign- investment portfolio, currently being managed in London, to finance that reconstruction.

Repopulation of the country will probably take weeks or months as Kuwait City's infrastructure, utilities and other services are restored. Even then the population will most probably have a quite different composition from that of prewar Kuwait. Nearly 60% of the residents before the Iraqi invasion were foreign workers and their families. Whoever rules the restored nation may sharply reduce that proportion.

No matter how daunting the task of rebuilding may seem to outsiders, Kuwaitis are eager to begin it. "As much of the country as they destroyed, they cannot make sand of it," said Alquhtani Shaya, a former university student from Kuwait City. "We will build from that."

With reporting by Dick Thompson/Dhahran and Bruce van Voorst/Washington