Rep. Gallegly Proposes Task Force to Examine Damage in Kuwait

Upon returning from a two-day trip to war-ravaged Kuwait, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said he was asking President Bush to appoint a federal task force to assess the environmental, energy and economic damage to the gulf nation and propose a plan to repair it.

In addition, Gallegly said Monday that he wants to see California companies derive maximum economic benefits through lucrative contracts to rebuild Kuwait, which saw much of its infrastructure destroyed and nearly 600 of its oil wells set ablaze by Iraqi invaders. Kuwait has pledged to give many of the contracts, which could total $100 billion, to U. S. firms in return for the leading role the United States played in ousting the Iraqis.

Gallegly, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was asking Bush to name a task force headed by Energy Secretary James D. Watkins, Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher and William K. Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The goal, Gallegly said, would be “to use the best experts we have available to assess the environmental, economic and energy aspects of this and how they can be mitigated.” Without such an effort, he said, “Kuwait as a country is doomed.”

Gallegly was one of 13 House members invited by the Kuwaiti government for last week’s visit. Kuwait initially planned to foot the bill but was prevented from doing so by an ethics rule that prohibits foreign sponsorship of congressional trips. As a result, Kuwait got the Fluor Corp., an Irvine-based construction firm that has done work in the Mideast since the 1940s and is seeking contracts in Kuwait, to pay the lawmakers’ expenses.

Amid reports that vengeance-seeking Kuwaitis were torturing and killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Iraqis and that pro-democracy Kuwaiti resistance leaders were threatened by the returning government, Gallegly said human rights were of “paramount importance.”

But he added that this “was not the primary issue that was raised during the course of this two-day trip.”

Rather, he said, the focus was “principally on the role of the U. S. in rebuilding that country and the economic benefits that we should derive.”

A Fluor spokeswoman said the lawmakers in the delegation were selected by Shaikh Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States. The congressmen--11 Republicans and two Democrats--were part of a larger group that included present and former government officials, business executives and consultants.