Wife’s Fears for Kuwaiti Husband End in Pride : Manhattan Beach: Stacey Al-Ghawas waited as her husband fled Iraqi captivity, then joined the Gulf War.

Stacey Carpenter Al-Ghawas’ anxious days of worry are behind her. But not her days of waiting.

The American-born wife of a Kuwaiti chemical engineer, Al-Ghawas was stranded with her two small children at her parents’ Manhattan Beach home, where they were vacationing when Iraq invaded her adopted country in August.

Months of worry about her hus band’s safety ended when he escaped from Kuwait after a month in prison and arrived here on Thanksgiving Day.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “He looked a little thinner, but he said, ‘No, I’ve fattened up,’ and I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ He was a very lean person to start with.”

Hani Al-Ghawas had planned to stay in Southern California with his family and find a job. But in January, he returned to the Middle East to do military intelligence work for the U.S. Army.

That ushered in a new period of anxiety for Stacey Al-Ghawas because she heard nothing from her husband while the ground war was being fought.

“He was working to intercept Iraqi communications,” she said. “He would go up in the vicinity of the enemy and listen to communications and translate for American forces. . . . I didn’t know where he was or if he was safe.”

Her new round of suspense ended when her husband called early this month from liberated Kuwait city--using the ABC News satellite telephone. “He was not able to tell me anything about what he is doing,” she said, but he did say he probably will be sent back to the United States after a permanent cease-fire with Iraq is concluded.

Now she finds herself in another limbo until that happens. “All I can do is wait,” said Al-Ghawas, who continues to live with her parents and works for a Culver City company selling telephone systems.

Al-Ghawas, who was a teacher and researcher at the University of Kuwait medical school, says the job is therapy for her. “I’m keeping my mind busy and kind of preoccupied,” she said. “It’s better than sitting about and moping.”

Al-Ghawas and her husband, both 33, were married in 1980 while they were students at UC Santa Barbara. In 1988, they both received doctorates--his in chemical engineering and hers in physiology--and went to live permanently in Kuwait. Hani Al-Ghawas worked as a chemical engineer before the invasion.

In an earlier interview, she described a comfortable life in the Persian Gulf emirate that blended modern conveniences with traditional ways dating back to biblical times. “You enjoy life a little bit more,” she said.

But she said there was no joy in the stories her husband brought with him at Thanksgiving.

Hani Al-Ghawas was stopped by the Iraqis and his car confiscated at the border as he tried to enter Saudi Arabia. In prison, he had no food for four days, and after that, his daily ration was a piece of watermelon and pita bread.

“While he was there, they beat him,” she said. “He was passing blood when he urinated. I imagine it was a kidney thing. They ripped his shoulder muscle, so he lost some movement in his left shoulder. He’s still not gotten it back.”

After a month, an order came from Baghdad to free the prisoners. Al-Ghawas was released. But of the approximately 80 people held in that prison, seven were executed instead, he said.

In the Kuwait city neighborhood where Hani Al-Ghawas’ parents were still living, a teen-age neighbor was shot by Iraqis. “They rounded him up, put him out at the end of the street, told him to walk home,” said Stacey Al-Ghawas. “They shot him in the back of the head in front of my husband’s house.”

Hani Al-Ghawas’ next attempt to leave Kuwait was successful, and after three weeks of getting papers in order in Saudi Arabia, he came to the United States. “His intent was to stay here,” said his wife. “He wanted to be with us, his family. He needed a rest.”

But when the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington, D.C., called for volunteers, he responded.

“He was torn between country and family,” Stacey Al-Ghawas said. “He could have stayed here, had a job and settled down. But in his heart, he would have felt he should have been doing something else.”

She said that despite the pain of separation from her husband and the overrunning of Kuwait, some good has come from the war.

“It has made me realize what is important in my life,” she said. “I’ve lost all my material things, and it doesn’t bother me to a great extent. It makes me realize how important my family is, how important it is to have a democratic system and to be in a free country.”

She said she also has learned how strong and close her relationship with her husband is.

“It makes me realize what kind of man I married, who thinks beyond his own needs. It makes me proud of him.”