From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Since Iraq's T-72 tanks rolled into Kuwait seven months ago, special correspondent Michael Kramer has flown to Saudi Arabia on five separate occasions to report on the war. During each trip, he made sure to go to the mountainous resort of Taif to visit with Kuwait's ruling family and the government in exile. In his story this week, Kramer shares his unique perspective on the Kuwaitis and tells what he found when he entered the ransacked shell of Kuwait City with six Kuwaiti ministers.

"Nothing is working well," says Mike. "The roads are chewed up by allied bombs and clogged with military convoys. On the way from Saudi Arabia we passed trucks carrying bottled water and satellite dishes for telephones; they didn't arrive for days. In Kuwait City the ministers set up their headquarters in the Armed Forces Hospital, and four days later they discovered an Iraqi soldier who had been hiding in a bathroom there."

Joining reporter Lara Marlowe and photographer Rudi Frey at TIME's outpost in the formerly luxe Kuwait International Hotel, Kramer found there was no electricity and little hot food, and that water ran only twice a day for brief periods. Besides food, one of the most important commodities in Kuwait City right now is spare tires. "People steal them, and with no electricity there's no way to repair them," says Kramer. "There are so many sharp pieces of metal on the road that a trip to the border is considered -- at a minimum -- a 'three-spare' trip."

Mike, who has covered wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Beirut, finds himself treading lightly in Kuwait. British troops disarmed a booby-trapped doorway at an amusement park he went to visit. Later he was detained for four hours by a young Kuwaiti soldier who didn't understand his ID papers. "Things can get a little tense, and you have to watch yourself," he said. "The soldiers at the checkpoints get shot at almost every night. You never go out alone."

Although they often had horrible stories to tell, many Kuwaitis were enthusiastic about sharing their thoughts and experiences with Kramer. "We journalists," he said, "are considered liberators as much as the troops are."