Kuwait Life Under a Cloud

By WILLIAM DOWELL/KUWAIT CITY

On a bad day, crossing the border into Kuwait is like getting a preview of the apocalypse. In the distance greasy smoke spurts from torched oil wells, sending up dozens of black funnels that look like infernal tornadoes. Overhead the plumes merge to form a charcoal cloud that blocks out the sun. Flakes of white ash tumble from the sky like dry, malignant snow. "Some days are so dark," says a photographer who is covering the fires, "I have to use a flashlight at nine in the morning."

But not all is gloom in Kuwait these days. Beneath the funereal skies lies a country that is recovering its spirit. Electricity and water plants are working again, and the phones are beginning to function too. In the capital the giant two-floor Sultana Supermarket is once more a cornucopia of fresh vegetables and delicacies from around the world.

At night scores of flashy cars and motorcycles cruise in front of the local Hardee's in a scene that looks like the gulf version of American Graffiti. A dozen teenagers break-dance to booming rap music that pours out of the open hatchback of a silver Renault 5 with a U.S. flag painted on its rear window. Yet even this simple celebration brings a reminder of the tension between tradition and change that is testing Kuwait. Passing the scene, a fundamentalist youth mutters, "Islam doesn't need discotheques."

Americans advising the government groaned when they learned that one of the first ships scheduled to arrive in Kuwait's freshly de-mined harbor carried several hundred Buick luxury sedans rather than badly needed construction equipment. Still, progress has been made in meeting the country's most basic requirements. Kuwait's desalination plants are now producing about 71 million gal. of water daily. Consumption is about 100 million gal. a day, but water brought in by ship makes up the shortfall. Most residents now get their water from rooftop storage tanks, but within a few months the city's reservoirs should be full enough to generate water pressure in taps.

Repaired power plants are putting out 2,000 to 3,000 megawatts of electricity, far more than the current demand of 540 megawatts. Some areas of the country still have no electricity, largely because of the Iraqis' destruction of power lines and electric substations. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing much of Kuwait's reconstruction, says some substations can be rebuilt in as little as two weeks.

Much of the wreckage caused by the Iraqis has turned out to be superficial. "Kuwait was damaged, but it was not destroyed in the way a city like Dresden was," says U.S. Major General Patrick Kelly of the Corps of Engineers. "The Iraqis had the intention of completely demolishing everything in the city, but the land war hit so fast they didn't have time to do it."

Nonetheless, Kuwait's recovery could go faster. Part of the problem is that a mere 300,000 of 700,000 Kuwaiti citizens are now living in the country. General Kelly estimates only a third of all civil servants are at their posts. "You don't have the middle management in the ministries," he says. Until recently the government told Kuwaitis displaced by the war to stay away until the country's infrastructure could support them. Last week the policy changed, and Kuwaitis were authorized to start coming home on May 4.

In the past Kuwaitis simply hired foreigners to do most of their work. Many of those expatriates may now hesitate to return to the ravaged city, which will lack for some time the creature comforts that once earned it a reputation as the jewel of the gulf. For the Palestinian community, which is credited with actually building much of Kuwait, there is an additional -- and legitimate -- concern: further persecution by Kuwaitis enraged by Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein. Of the 168,000 Palestinians left in Kuwait out of a prewar total of 400,000, about half are expected to emigrate.

Amnesty International reported last week that retribution aimed mainly at Palestinians was continuing and that attacks "appear to be largely unchecked." Since Kuwait's liberation, says the human-rights group, hundreds of people have been arbitrarily arrested, many of them tortured and scores killed. Members of both the armed forces and the underground resistance that flourished during the Iraqi occupation are said to be responsible. Though Kuwaiti officials promised Amnesty International investigators that "those responsible would be brought to justice," the organization accuses the government of according human rights "an extremely low priority."

Government incompetence has also complicated Kuwait's rebirth. U.S. firms ! involved in the reconstruction have complained of long delays in clearing equipment through both Kuwaiti and Saudi customs. The most alarming case of sluggishness has been in extinguishing the more than 500 oil fires set by the departing Iraqis. So far, only 12 have been put out. And of the scores of sabotaged wells that were gushing oil but not burning, only 44 have been capped. The government blames the contractors -- three of them American and one Canadian -- for the slow progress. But the companies complain of cumbersome red tape and say that because the government signed contracts with them just last month, much of the equipment necessary for the job is only now arriving.

In an effort to quiet carping about its inadequacies, the government resigned last month. A new Cabinet was announced last weekend, keeping Crown Prince Sheik Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah as Prime Minister but changing many of the other positions. One palace insider says the new lineup has "fewer weaknesses but also fewer strong personalities."

With a view toward running in the country's parliamentary elections, some of Kuwait's key leaders, notably Sheik Saad's closest aide, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Abdul Rahman al-Awadi, have chosen to stay out of the new Cabinet. They prefer to agitate for democracy from the outside rather than be perceived as defending the status quo. "Whoever accepted a post in this government," says an ex-minister, "is going to have a thankless task." One of the most thankless tasks will be to sell the Kuwaitis on the timing of parliamentary elections. Many hoped the balloting would take place this year, so there was much grumbling when the Emir announced that it would be next year, "God willing." Now it appears the elections will occur not even in the spring of 1992 but in the fall, which surely will further anger the voters.