California Woman Who Made Daring Escape Arrives Home

An American who made a daring escape from Kuwait last week by slipping past Iraqi troops disguised as an Arab has arrived home to smiling and crying relatives.

“Hello America, I love you,” Stephanie McGehee called out Tuesday as she entered the terminal at San Diego’s international airport.

“It’s good to be home,” said McGehee, a part-time photographer for the Associated Press who had lived in Lebanon and Kuwait for 13 years.

McGehee, 37, of Leucadia, fled the Kuwaiti capital for Saudi Arabia last Friday in the lead car of a 13-vehicle caravan of Americans and other foreigners.

Dressed in a floor-length black chador, she used her knowledge of Arabic dialects to slip past Iraqi troops that invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. But the group was forced back at the last checkpoint, and they had to drive into the desert and around Iraqi troop positions to reach Saudi Arabia.

McGehee’s father, Bill, said he never doubted that his daughter would escape safely.

“I know Stephanie knows how to take care of herself. I know she has the ability of being able to do what she has to do,” he said.

McGehee had been in hiding nine days when the Iraqi government announced that it wanted all U.S. and British expatriates to gather at a hotel. McGehee said that is when she decided it was time to flee Kuwait.

“When I heard (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein’s speech and he said he would send Americans home in coffins,” she recalled, “I said, ‘No way. Not me.’ ”