Bush’s Departure: Cheers in Baghdad but Mourning in Kuwait : Emirate: Bush is the warrior who drove the occupiers from their land, and now ‘we don’t know how we can sleep.’

Amid the cacophony of tinkling teacups, beeping pagers, ringing cellular telephones and chatter that enlivens a Kuwaiti businessman’s social evening, a palpable silence descended as--on a television screen at the front of a room here--George Bush waved a final farewell as U.S. President and mounted the steps to the plane that would take him from Washington.

The burbling of the water pipes stopped. Several men put down their playing cards. One man walked toward the TV, kissed his finger, and played it over the figure of Bush on the screen.

“Bye-bye, Bush! Good man! Thank you!” he said softly, then turned back to the crowd assembled on soft pillows on the floor.

“This is breaking our hearts to see this,” he said. “ Sad is the common word in Kuwait tonight. Bush leaves office, and we don’t know how we can sleep.”

George Herbert Walker Bush may be remembered by Americans for many things--for helping end the Cold War or neglecting the economy, for invading Panama or saving the starving of Somalia. But in this fairy-tale-like emirate on the Persian Gulf, which spent seven months at the mercy of a brutal dictator, Bush will always be remembered as the warrior who routed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his occupation of this land.

In a country whose rulers went fleeing ahead of an invading Iraqi army, there is not a single figure whose image is better loved by more people than the lanky former President whose image they watched hourly on CNN throughout the occupation.

Baghdad Street in downtown Kuwait city is now called Bush Street. Variety shops sell T-shirts with huge photos of a smiling Bush and the words, “We Love President Bush.”

At the gold market downtown, a filigree belt fashioned of 21-karat bullets dubbed the “Bush Belt” with matching bracelet and earrings has been purchased by 25 Bedouin brides since the liberation of Kuwait last February--at a price of $12,000 apiece.

The U.S. Embassy here handed out a huge shipment of Bush photos in the week after the liberation and has had to reorder twice. Before the U.S. elections last fall, which got more coverage in the press here than Kuwait’s own first parliamentary elections in a decade, embassy officials had to hand out address sheets to answer demands from Kuwaitis about where to send money for Bush’s reelection campaign.

A group of Bedouin women went to a mosque each evening during the campaign to pray for Allah wa Bush-- God and Bush. The night the incumbent President was defeated, many Kuwaitis wept as they left the hall where election returns were broadcast live.

“The Kuwaiti people look at Bush as the sheriff that kicked the bad guys out of town, and the sheriff isn’t supposed to lose,” a Kuwaiti analyst said. “Americans made a bad choice, and they’re going to regret it.

“As for us, it’s going to be the toughest four years.”

Kuwait TV broadcast the inaugural ceremonies live for the first time; the daily Al Anbaa newspaper put out a 14-page special section, complete with photos, documenting Bush’s term.

“My son Bush,” the paper quoted an old woman identified as Umm Jarah, “I wish I weren’t blind so that I could see you, but it’s old age. May God protect your children for you so that they become sheiks of America.”

After the inaugural ceremonies, Kuwait TV went live with a panel of Kuwaiti analysts, talking against a backdrop of American flags, recalling the beloved Bush years. “It’s difficult to explain the depth of the emotional bond the Kuwaitis feel toward the Americans as people,” said an American who works here. “The reaction here after the election was, ‘How can you do this to this man?’ We accept . . . that this is your system, but we will never, never understand how you could do this to him.’ ”

At an election night party hosted by the U.S. Embassy at Kuwait’s Sheraton Hotel, many Kuwaitis, determined to ignore the polls, showed up with confetti and banners to hang on their cars saying “Congratulations, Bush!”

“People stayed to the morning,” recalled a Kuwaiti journalist whose columns have often memorialized Bush’s accomplishments. “There were a lot of us who made their car ready to put a flag on it and move in the streets. But when Bush lost the election, Kuwait was very quiet. Unbelievable. This is the man who not only picked up the shoes of the Iraqi army from our necks, he cut their legs.”

On the Arabian sands that border the Persian Gulf, lands fought and won over the centuries by legions of Bedouin warriors, Bush spoke a language of power that all could understand.

“All Kuwaitis love Bush, except maybe the old ladies,” said Ahmad Shames Dain, whose twin boys, born two weeks after the Iraqi invasion, are named Mishal Bush and Abdelaziz Major (in tribute to British Prime Minister John Major--because, as Dain notes, Abdelaziz “is five minutes smaller than Bush.”)

As a new crisis with Iraq loomed in the last days of his Administration, many Kuwaitis believed that Bush, in the end, would take Hussein with him. Local journalists covering the National Assembly placed bets on how many hours before Bush left Hussein would fall. But then the hours got shorter--and most Kuwaitis were forced to begin wondering how Kuwait would fare under the new Clinton Administration. Would 650,000 Kuwaitis matter so much?

“I think the American interests and the Kuwaiti interests are the same until now, even if Clinton comes. It doesn’t depend on the President, it doesn’t depend on the Administration, it depends on interest,” said Abdel Mohsen Jamal, a member of Parliament.

At Wednesday night’s social gathering of men, a Kuwaiti institution known as the diwaniya, the host, Osama Tarkeet, Kuwait’s traffic police chief, was circumspect. “We hope the new President will take the same policy as Mr. Bush when he’s dealing with the situation in the Gulf, because we need Kuwait to stay safe from any danger,” he said.

He watched as Bush walked toward the plane.

“It is painful for us to see Bush leave us,” he said, “to go and be alone.”