Man and Dog Gave Iraqis the Slip for Months

Iraqi troops who scoured Kuwait city for Westerners never did find Thomas Kreuzman. Or his dog Chu-Chu.

To evade them, at one point Kreuzman and Chu-Chu spent 23 days in a crawl space next to a water heater above a hallway in his Kuwait city apartment.

Kreuzman listened breathlessly while Iraqi soldiers looted the rooms below and carted off about $50,000 worth of electronic equipment and clothing. He and his pet had climbed into the crawl space on Oct. 6 after soldiers began ransacking nearby apartments.

“My heart was pounding,” he said, “and I was so panicked when they came I forgot to turn off the TV.”

At various times during the 23 days, he was able to slip out and even to scrounge food from the five vacant apartments in the six-unit building. He was never discovered, even when the soldiers came back to strip his apartment of everything--including the kitchen cabinets.

Kreuzman had prepared his hiding place with water and food--dried spaghetti and dried soup--and had glued the screw heads to the grill over the opening to the crawl space so that it did not look as if it had been opened.

When the Iraqis came, he said, his dog semed to know that something extraordinary was happening. “She was quiet,” he said. “I think she knew what to do, not to bark, because usually she barked a lot.”

Kreuzman bought Chu-Chu, a black and silver Yorkshire terrier, for $5 from Bedouin youngsters two years ago, and planned to bring her home to his daughters.

But Tuesday at his Florida home, sitting next to a Christmas tree and surrounded by his family, Kreuzman said sadly that, after all they had been through together, Chu-Chu did not make it out of Iraq. At the Baghdad airport, the crate in which she was traveling was crushed and the frightened dog ran away.

Kreuzman, among the first American hostages to be released from Kuwait, spent Tuesday spinning cloak-and-dagger tales of suspense for his family and reporters, describing the life he led not just in the crawl space, but during four months of hiding in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

He said he decided to flee what he called his “cubby hole” after noticing that Iraqi soldiers were loading trucks with water heaters scavenged from buildings nearby. Since the water heater in Kreuzman’s apartment was up in his hiding place, he knew he was bound to be found.

Though he recalled speeding past military checkpoints in cars with no lights and being hustled into safehouses, Kreuzman, a 38-year-old technician who worked for the Kuwait Ministry of Defense, said: “I’m no hero. I’m a victim of something that happened.

“They (the Kuwaitis) are the true heroes,” he added. “We left with our dignity and pride, but I intend to go back to Kuwait. The salary they paid me allowed me to buy this house and to take care of my family. To come back here and do nothing--I wouldn’t feel right.”

Kreuzman, about 6 feet 2 and extremely thin, said he had lost about 10 pounds. He was aided during his months of hiding by many friends who brought him food, and he kept in touch by telephone with the U.S. Embassy and other Americans.

Between news media interviews, Kreuzman spent as much time as he could Tuesday with his wife, Samkhaun, and his two young daughters, Mariann, age 10, and Diane, age 5, all of whom he had not seen in almost a year. Their suburban house about 20 miles north of Tampa was festooned with the trappings of Christmas and homemade “Welcome Home” signs.

Kreuzman said he came home with a new respect for life and an appreciation that material possessions are not important. “I may buy another television set, but I won’t care if I lose it,” he said.

Although some returning Americans have had harsh words for the Bush Administration and its handling of the gulf crisis, Kreuzman had nothing but praise. He said he hopes U.S. military forces attack Saddam Hussein’s troops after all foreigners are evacuated from Iraq. “We armed him, and it’s our responsibility to the world to correct this problem,” he said. “We’re not fighting for oil--it’s for the country of Kuwait.”