Rebuilding Kuwait Proves a Slow, Haphazard Task : Aftermath: Many stores are closed, power and phone service are spotty. And the government is ineffective.

Take a walk down Fahd al Salam Street in downtown Kuwait city and you see the checkered pattern of postwar recovery.

Store after store on one of the city’s oldest and traditionally busiest streets is closed, darkened and hidden behind steel gates. The tiled sidewalk is dusty and deserted. Then, a passerby stumbles upon a shop that has swept its doorstep clean, opened to the public and is struggling to do business like a pioneer on a lonely frontier.

This is Kuwait city today. For every sign of life, there are 10 more reminders that the road to recovery is a long one--and that many Kuwaitis haven’t even begun to walk it yet.

Engineers from the U.S. Army, who made progress in restoring electrical power to 95% of the country in 75 days, were hit this week with blackouts that proved the system is still vulnerable; telephone service went from bad to worse in many neighborhoods while some privileged households boasted direct-dial international phoning.

A handful of red-suited workers from Third World countries are sweeping streets, and scrap-metal companies are beginning to haul some of the junked cars stripped and burned by fleeing Iraqi troops. But millions of gallons of raw sewage continue to pour unhinderred into the Persian Gulf because the sewage system has not been repaired.

As Iraqi forces were driven from Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition, they gutted and burned public buildings, looted businesses and blew up roads, electrical power stations and water-desalination plants.

Since Kuwait’s liberation on Feb. 28, however, the ruling Sabah family has appeared ill-equipped to lead the rebuilding effort, and many Kuwaitis complain that recovery has been too slow.

On Fahd al Salam Street, the Ministry of Oil is quiet. The offices are open and employees arrive in the morning, but there is little for them to do. One employee scurried up a staircase, a Hoover vacuum cleaner in one hand and a catalogue of custom-made office furniture in the other.

“They (the Iraqis) took everything,” he said.

Oil well fires continue to rage in the Burgan fields more than two months after they were ignited by Iraqis and allied bomb strikes. As of this week, about 100 of 600 fires had been extinguished in a slow job that has been plagued by the government’s failure to procure equipment and other delays.

Government officials said they expect to begin producing 50,000 barrels of crude per day by next month. Some private industry experts consider the goal unrealistic.

Down the street from the ministry, ransacked tourist agency offices, a jewelry store stripped bare of its precious merchandise and empty boutiques line up silently under shattered neon signs. In the middle of this, Abdul Mohsin Saleh, a Yemeni in a white skullcap, mans the tiny Abdul Razzan al Kazem textile shop, selling imported white-and-beige broadcloth that tailors will craft into Kuwaiti disdashas.

“People come in and ask about the prices,” said Mohsin, standing alongside shelves stacked with bolts of fabric and golden thread. “I had 20 customers yesterday. God willing, it will get better.”

The Kuwaiti owner of the business has not yet returned from exile. Of five employees who also left the country after the invasion, the government is allowing an Egyptian and two Indians to return. But, as part of an effort to punish nationals whose governments were not supportive of Kuwait during the war, re-entry has been denied to two Yemenis, both 35-year veterans of the company.

On Fahd al Salam Street, Abdel T. Rishek’s electronics store is up and running--sort of. Employees spent 10 days sweeping broken glass and installing window panes; Rishek is selling what remains of his stock of radios, refrigerators and videocassette players with what remains of his staff.

He is placing advertisements in other countries where he believes most of his employees fled after the invasion, hoping to attract them back, if the government permits. And he hopes soon to be awarded a letter of credit from one of the handful of banks that has reopened so that he can begin importing again.

Business people throughout Kuwait complain that recovery, especially in the downtown Kuwait city district, is stalled because the government has been slow in issuing credit and has failed to offer adequate compensation for damages to businesses and offices.

Rishek, a successful Palestinian with two daughters living in San Diego, was able to salvage part of his inventory by hiding it in a basement of the store, then camouflaging the entryway.

Nevertheless, his business is only about 20% of what it used to be, and most trade has shifted to an outlet in the Salmiyah suburb, where damage was less severe. Because residents are buying appliances to replace what the Iraqis stole or trashed, Rishek expects to have sold out of his stock within three months. He may be forced to close because of the time it will take to import new products.

Because the recovery of the central business district depends in large part on the recovery of the government, Rishek said: “Downtown . . . is still not really alive yet.

“We expect by September that things will start to come to normal,” he said, adding: “Never to normal. Kuwait of the past is difficult to come back.”

The worst damage was dealt to Kuwait’s public utilities infrastructure, and reconstruction has so far focused there.

With the emergency repair of three principal power stations, the country’s electrical grid can now produce twice the current users’ demand, said Jim Parker, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Demand will increase, however, as Kuwaitis who fled their homes return and as air conditioners work overtime against summer temperatures now surpassing 110 degrees.

Kuwait’s desalination plants and water-distribution systems are pumping 80 million gallons per day into homes four days a week and, the rest of the week, into a reservoir that was emptied during the occupation. Engineers hope to increase production to the expected summer demand of 100 million gallons of water per day.

But water-treatment facilities are shut down, raw sewage pours into the Gulf and there is a critical shortage of the semi-treated water used to irrigate plants and feed livestock.

The most serious impediments to recovery in Kuwait continue to be the thousands of unexploded mines and ordnance scattered throughout the country, which have killed or maimed soldiers and civilians alike. Private companies are supposed to assume the work of clearing explosives, but little progress has been reported.

Kuwaitis agree there have been improvements since the early days of their country’s freedom from Iraq. But for many, the progress is overshadowed by the enormous task at hand.

“It’s the half-glass syndrome,” said a Western diplomat. “Is the glass half full or half empty? . . . Is life here for the average Kuwaiti better today than it was three weeks ago? Yes. Six weeks ago or eight weeks ago? Definitely--even though Kuwaitis are the first to (complain).”

The air is often full of dust, soot and smoke from the oil well fires, or the stench from sewage. But fewer are the days when the skies are turned absolutely black and vision is completely obscured.

Bomb craters have been filled on most of the roads in southern Kuwait, and 124 miles of roadway have been cleared of hundreds of wrecked cars, bunkers and concrete medians that were intended to block the path of U.S. troops, Parker said.

Pieces of Kuwait’s destroyed dhow fleet--the wooden fishing boats that are Kuwait’s national symbol--continue to litter the harbor; barbed wire that the Iraqis stretched along parts of the ocean-front highway has not been removed.

Public bus service was restored this week. But the number of passengers could probably be counted on two hands. Half of the country’s 600 schools will be ready to open in September, officials say, while the university is a year away from resuming classes.