Kuwait Gets Ready for Liberation : Reconstruction: Firms worldwide have been awarded contracts to bring in water, power, food and medical supplies after the Iraqis are ousted.

Kuwait’s government-in-exile, steeling itself to the prospect of returning to a country in ruins, is assembling an emergency team in a staging area near here to move in swiftly behind allied forces and restore basic public services to a liberated Kuwait.

Contracts worth up to $800 million have been awarded to companies worldwide to bring in emergency water, power, food and medical supplies to Kuwaitis in the critical days after Iraqi troops are driven out of the country.

Government officials estimate that it will take at least 90 days to bring in portable electrical generators, restore telephone service, stock temporary medical supplies on empty hospital shelves and provide clean water to the estimated 800,000 residents who will be living in Kuwait immediately after liberation.

Complete reconstruction of the country could take up to five years and cost billions of dollars, Ibrahim Shaheen, director of Kuwait’s Emergency and Recovery Program, told reporters Sunday. Western estimates have ranged as high as $60 billion for full reconstruction.

“In our planning, we had to make the assumption that we were starting from zero for a country with a population of 800,000,” said Shaheen, an architect and former housing authority director. “Now, it’s more clear than before that our assumptions are much closer to being correct by assuming the worst conditions.”

Already, he said, reports from inside Kuwait indicate sporadic power outages because of poor maintenance on power-generation plants. Similar problems are developing with water desalination plants and an even larger problem looms with large piles of garbage accumulating in residential neighborhoods.

Hospitals have been gutted, oil wells have been ignited, medicine is in many cases non-existent and food supplies could run short at any time, Shaheen said. Roads, he said, have been badly damaged by tanks traveling over them; no one is certain of the extent of bomb damage so far or what future damage will result from military action to liberate the country.

“We have a team set up to evaluate the damage that has been done,” he said. “We don’t know what will be involved long-term. We’re talking now about unknowns. The scene is changing from one day to another.”

Kuwaiti authorities have set up an emergency plan for the first 90 days to help restore basic services for Kuwaitis still in the country. Assembling now at a staging area in the Saudi coastal city of Dammam, about 200 miles south of the Kuwait border, an emergency relief group is preparing to enter Kuwait as soon as allied military authorities determine it is safe.

A total of 171 contracts, valued at $700 million to $800 million, have already been awarded for work during the first 90 days, Shaheen said. About 70% of the contracts are held by American companies.

Kuwaiti officials say it will probably be a long time before Kuwait’s former population of 2.2 million is restored. Indeed, government authorities are discouraging Kuwaitis outside the country from returning during the first several months, until the welfare of those already in Kuwait can be assured, Shaheen said.

“I know everybody’s anxious to go back and see their families, but I think it’s for the benefit of those inside to stay away until the services can be reactivated,” he said.

However, the Kuwaiti government has surveyed all Kuwaitis outside the country, indexed their areas of professional expertise, and is calling on those who can help rebuild the country to go in with the recovery team as needed.

Kuwaitis, beneficiaries of tremendous oil revenues, which for years allowed them to rely on foreign labor for the majority of their basic services, will take a much stronger personal role in rebuilding their country, Shaheen said.