COLUMN ONE : Old Ways Die Hard in Kuwait : Bureaucracy and foreign labor once again prevail, and time has eased the pressure for political change.

Business as usual reigns in this desert sheikdom.

Eight months after Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi legions were repulsed, the passion, anxieties and dark-of-night retributions of the immediate postwar days have softened. Desert Storm camouflage has given way to blue suits of deal-makers from Europe, the United States and Japan. “Mad Max has gone,” as one Western diplomat puts it, “and the carpetbaggers have taken over.”

Now, too, the grasp of bureaucracy is once again choking business enterprise. The prospect of political change, which seemed to boil after liberation, has become a mere simmer.

And the postwar demands for “Kuwaitization” of the work force--to reverse the system that left Kuwaitis as no more than one-third their own country’s population--are still raised but seldom heeded.

Behind the reception desk of the Kuwait International Hotel, clerks from the Far East sign in the guests. Indian bellhops in the gray and red hotel livery tote the luggage upstairs. In the restaurants, the sibilant “Yes, sir” of Filipina waitresses is heard again.

At the restored Kuwait International Airport, 12 to 15 planes arrive daily, many packed with single women from Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Well-to-do Kuwaiti families once again have the maid service that has provided them with one of the world’s least strenuous lifestyles.

One diplomat put the number of returning maids at 100,000 out of an estimated prewar level of 180,000. That prewar figure meant that Kuwait had nine times more maids than soldiers, an illustration of national priorities.

In middle- and lower-class flats in the old sections of the capital, Egyptian men are living five or six to a room, taking over space--and jobs--left by Palestinians, whose numbers have fallen to less than 20% of the estimated 400,000 who lived in Kuwait before the Iraqis invaded on Aug. 2, 1990.

The Palestinians’ days here were numbered once Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat sided with Saddam Hussein during the war. “It’s over for the Palestinians,” said Abdul Razak Marafie, a Kuwaiti businessman whose family deals in real estate and furnishings. “I’m operating short-handed until business picks up, but I’ll be hiring Kuwaitis if I can.”

The Palestinians formed the heart of the middle class, and their purchasing power will not be replaced by Egyptian men coming to Kuwait on short-term contracts. In addition to the issue of political loyalties, Kuwaitis are also loath to let a second generation of Palestinians take hold of the mid-managerial reins of government services, commerce and professions here.

Meantime, the grip of the Sabahs, the ruling family, has not relaxed. The emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, and his brothers, nephews and cousins have resumed control of the political superstructure and have set the political agenda as well.

Within three months of liberation, the emir, pressured in those heady days for reform, named a new cabinet that perpetuated Sabah control of the key ministries of interior, defense and foreign affairs.

Sheik Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, the emir’s cousin and the crown prince, was retained as prime minister and remains a lightning rod for political displeasure. (Whatever a Kuwaiti might think of the emir, he would not openly criticize him.) Sheik Saad, a bearish, convivial man, has the common touch but little appeal to leaders of the opposition.

“The ministries were never really true organizations,” remarked Abdulaziz Sultan, chairman of the Gulf Bank, who favors more technocrats and fewer Sabahs in government. “We don’t know who is in charge, who reports to whom. Political and economic decisions are not rationalized. Responsibilities are not defined here.

“In particular, I’m thinking about the prime minister. He’s a decent man, but does that make him qualified?”

Demands for political change were rampant at war’s end, particularly among the Kuwaitis who remained here during the occupation. The opposition--a label that in Kuwait includes democrats, Islamists and Pan-Arabists--called for prompt restoration of the Parliament that Sheik Jabbar disbanded in 1986.

The emir promised new elections for October, 1992--a distant 20 months from the end of the war. The pledge was initially met with charges that he was stalling, but it now has become a visible political milepost down the road.

The real test of democratization will be the issue of who gets the vote, which is now limited to so-called “first-class” males, about 10% of the native Kuwaiti population. No changes are expected before the 1992 balloting.

After the invasion, occupation, the war and its bittersweet aftermath, however, prospect of any election is satisfying, and the politicians seem to be taking a breather. Issues are still discussed at weekly diwaniyahs --Kuwait’s unique combination of bull session and town forum held in the seclusion of private homes--but the urgency of April has subsided in autumn.

To assure that political discourse remains calm, government censors have desks in every Kuwaiti newsroom. But much of the tempered tone is self-imposed, according to both political figures and diplomats.

For instance, at a recent diwaniyah in the home of Rasha al Sabah, a vice rector of Kuwait University, the prospect of inaugurating women’s suffrage in the 1992 election was raised in surprisingly mellow debate. “You don’t have to change the constitution in order to give women the vote; you just have to apply it,” the hostess argued to a group that included both men and women, a rare mixed diwaniyah.

“Well, it won’t happen,” responded Mubarak Abdul Mayyal, the founder of Kuwait Broadcasting Co., who argues against change in the conservative Gulf. “The women look at the moon and see only the bright side, not the dark side. We are a small country, and we have to take into account the attitudes of our neighbors.”

The potentially hot subject was treated with decorum, then followed by tea and pastries.

In these months of reflection and restoration, many influential Kuwaitis appear unable to look beyond the trauma of the occupation and its ugly aftermath of vigilantism. Western diplomats say the abuses against alleged collaborators have largely been brought under control by Kuwaiti security, but the country is still undergoing a ritual cleansing, ridding itself of any but the most pliant outsiders.

Palestinians who left by the tens of thousands during the occupation have been denied re-entry, and others are being forced out as their work permits here expire. Bidouns-- Kuwait’s so-called stateless Arabs--also face continued discrimination. Some bidouns of Iraqi ancestry went north during the occupation and now are stranded in the demilitarized zone separating Kuwait and Iraq. Kuwaiti authorities refuse to accept them, suggesting that they could comprise an Iraqi fifth column. Little over a year ago, Kuwait depended on bidouns for security: They made up the majority of the army’s enlisted ranks.

In a similar turn of the political wheel, old reservations about contacts with Iran are disappearing. Kuwaiti Airways and Iran Air are scheduled to exchange flights soon, and a so-called Iranian market has blossomed along the seawall near the commercial district.

Iranian fishermen from the opposite shore of the Gulf are peddling their catch here for Kuwaiti dinars. The buyers are mainly Kuwaiti Shiite Muslim women in black chadors, who move from table to table selecting fish and shrimp and tossing the packages into wheelbarrows pushed by trailing Sri Lankan porters in uniform green jumpsuits.

According to one Western diplomat, the strong role played by Kuwaiti Shiites in the resistance was “perhaps the most important political development of the war,” erasing Kuwaiti suspicions that the religious bond with Iran’s clergy-led Shiite regime could pose a threat to the Sunni Muslim majority here.

Reminders of the war are never far away, although Kuwait city did not suffer extensive structural damage, and hotels and offices torched by the retreating Iraqis are being patched and repainted. The most obvious reminder--smoke from Iraqi-sabotaged oil wells--was swept from the skies by the Nov. 6 recapping of the last burning well.

An accelerated restoration program, which may cost the Kuwaitis $2 billion, has removed the dispiriting black cloud and raised the chance of fully resumed oil production a year from now. But the environmental costs of the war are incalculable. The oil field sands are still crusted in black.

Meanwhile, sonic booms of military jets still rattle windows daily in Kuwait city, and at Doha, not far north of the capital, 1,500 U.S. troops are based as a symbol of security.

They are expected to return to their units in Western Europe next month, but the American shield will remain in place under an agreement with the Kuwaiti government that permits U.S. airfield and port access here, along with basing of weapons and ammunition. Britain and France are negotiating similar arrangements. Postwar plans for an Arab security force in the Gulf are dead, diplomats here say, a victim of price and politics.

Elsewhere, the truth and myth of the ordeal of occupation are deliberately sustained. At the Kuwait International Hotel, a trail of painted footprints leads across the lobby to an exhibition of the detritus of war--shell casings, boots, mess kits and helmets jumbled around a television monitor that repeatedly runs a British Broadcasting Corp. special on the war.

It may be the only hotel where a guest receives not only the flyer on what to do in case of fire but also another describing the types of unexploded mines and rockets one might encounter in his travels. “If you find one of these or a similar one,” the flyer recommends, “stop . . . (and) draw back the way you came.”

Military authorities say more than half the countryside is littered with mines, unexploded ammunition and other lethal hazards. The emir’s consultative National Council was told last month that more people have been killed in ordnance removal and mine accidents than in the Iraqi invasion itself.

Most of the mines were planted by Iraqis in the desert southwest of Kuwait city, designed to block an allied sweep that struck much farther north. Many lie within the 146-mile-long, 9-mile-wide demilitarized zone that separates Kuwaiti and Iraqi forces, and they have presented a problem for the blue-helmeted U.N. truce observers.

Austrian Gen. Gunther Greindl, the U.N. commander, said the Iraqi government has apparently offered a reward for retrieved mines--about $15 each--and bounty hunters are crossing into the DMZ looking for treasure. They are traded--along with guns, booze and other contraband--by smugglers at a “sheep market” that floats around the DMZ to escape detection.

Most Kuwaitis would not play such dangerous games. Before the war, the vast majority took few risks beyond racing their Chevrolet Caprices along the coastal road.

They led a pampered life in an explosive region. More than 90% worked for the government, holding down a desk and a chair at one of the ministries and, by their own admission, having little to do. By noon they often were gone, home with the family or out doing a bit of private business. Health care was free, newlyweds were given a house. Oil paid for an expatriate work force to keep things running; it imported the amenities, and those in position took a nice commission on the deal.

The lifestyle contributed to an attitude of indifference that outsiders interpreted--accurately--as arrogance. It cost the Kuwaitis some bad press in a crisis in which they were the victims.

Now the Kuwaitis are challenging each other to reshape their society and government. They point to the resistance, both active and passive, which largely foiled Iraqi hopes of keeping services and businesses running. “It’s a point of pride,” said Mohammed Qadiri, a businessman, former diplomat, big-game hunter and hostage of the Iraqis for two weeks at the end of the war. The people maintained a resistance, Qadiri argues, and they can now grab their country’s bootstraps.

A Las Vegas bookmaker would not like the odds, however.

“Non-Kuwaitis have done all the work,” observed Sultan, the bank chairman, regarding the prewar operation of ministries. “The Kuwaitis held the top positions not because they were competent but because they were Kuwaitis.

“I don’t think they can cope,” he remarked of the depleted ranks in government service. “I think it will take a long time. We have a crisis of leadership . . . a policy of continuous indecisiveness.”

Almost exclusively, the business of Kuwait is oil, and it is government-owned. Tenders for foreign equipment and services are put out by the Kuwait Oil Co., and the bids and related approvals work their way tortuously through the bureaucracy.

A particular problem for private business is the government policy on work visas. Officials insist they want to cut the foreign labor force, but businessmen say they can round up the necessary visas--it just takes a little longer.

Meanwhile, according to Western business people and diplomats, Kuwaiti officials’ main interest appears to be not so much getting the best value for the dinar as spending the fewest possible dinars--a time-consuming bidding process.

“We’re right back to the same old system,” an American businessman agreed, questioning the professionalism and efficiency of the government, with or without foreign managers. “You make a bid, it goes to the ministry, and the man just sits there and waits. Waits for a better offer, waits for another bid, waits for word from the old personal representative (the fixer). Why’s this going to change? Where’s the pressure?”