In a Surreal Limbo Between Peace and War

Sheila Gittens is not going to be scared into fleeing her adopted home by Saddam Hussein.

“This is home for lots of Americans, and we’re not leaving everything we’ve built here,” said Gittens, a native of New Jersey who owns a local trading and contracting firm. “If you live in Kuwait, you have to learn not to be frightened.”

Although some Americans -- particularly those with young children -- are accepting offers from their employers of free airfare and an unofficial vacation and leaving this country, the vast majority of the 8,000 U.S. citizens living here are staying put.

Most have been toughened by years of tension between Kuwait and Iraq and by repeated bellicose statements from Hussein, who has never renounced his country’s claim to be the rightful ruler of Kuwait.

“We call it the Saddam syndrome,” Gittens said. “Every year, he does something to get everyone tense.”

For some Americans here, Kuwait is a temporary assignment that will end with their return to a government or private-sector job in the States. But for many, it is their permanent residence.

“The veteran Americans who have been here a while feel relatively secure,” said Ronald Brown of New York, executive director of a school for children with learning disabilities. “It’s the new people -- or the ones who live in compounds either psychologically or physically -- who are worried. They respond to CNN, not to the daily reality around them.”

Still, on Jan. 21, a suspected terrorist killed one American civilian and wounded another near Camp Doha, where the U.S. Army is massing forces for a possible war with Iraq. Last fall, a Marine was killed by terrorists during a training exercise.

And on Friday, the U.S. Embassy issued a warning in which Americans were “strongly urged to consider departing” and “reminded of the potential for further terrorist actions.”

The embassy uses what is called a “warden” system, whereby advisories and updates for American citizens are relayed to volunteers, who then pass them on to a wider circle.

In recent years, embassy staff have also organized drills simulating an evacuation in which Americans would be loaded onto helicopters and hovercraft and whisked to Navy ships in the Persian Gulf.

“We have the most highly developed warden system of any country in the Middle East,” Brown said.

It is a strange twilight existence these days in Kuwait City -- not war, but not peace.

This weekend, Kuwaiti civilian authorities posted 4,000 additional police and special forces troops in armored vehicles at major intersections, near tourist hotels and at several popular sites.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy is allowing family members and nonemergency personnel to leave the country, with Washington paying the tab. Some of the larger American firms here are making similar offers to their workers.

Schools and businesses have conducted evacuation drills, and the country’s legislature -- the most freewheeling in any Persian Gulf country -- is conducting a vigorous debate about whether the nation is prepared for war.

Two schools catering to the children of Americans and other Westerners are closing for six weeks. A mass evacuation drill is scheduled for today.

But shopping -- in both traditional souks and modern air-conditioned malls -- continues apace. February is a national festival month that, in effect, seeks to elevate consumerism to the level of patriotism. The streets are clogged with sport utility vehicles. In a country where dining late is a tradition, restaurants are crowded far into the night.

On Thursday and Friday, the Kuwaiti weekend, boaters took to the turquoise waters of the Gulf for fishing and water-skiing, not far from where U.S. ships are unloading tons of armaments and gear.

Even as the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have taken over large areas of the desert as staging grounds for war exercises, Kuwaitis are engaging in their passion for camping.

Not far from where American troops are digging “Scud trenches” for protection against a possible preemptive missile strike by Iraq, people are parking late-model cars, pitching tents and frolicking, Arab-style.

Upper-middle-class Kuwaitis have made camp in the desert not far from both Camp Doha and the Marine Corps’ Camp Commando. Entire families, often tended by maids and nannies, are enjoying desert outings complete with barbecues and four-wheeling.

“For a Kuwaiti, the desert is our friend,” said Abdul Mubarak, an accountant. “That the American soldiers are nearby does not change things. Life must be lived.”

Even the weather belies the increasing tension between Washington and Baghdad. Kuwait is emerging from what passes for winter -- days of hazy skies and brisk winds -- and into a short springlike idyll before the blistering summer heat lays its oppressive hand on the region.

Americans say the Jan. 21 attack heightened their normal vigilance.

“I’m always cautious -- it’s the Middle East,” said Ilene Alzaid of Buffalo, N.Y., an elementary school principal at the American Academy for Girls, which remains open. “If I got nervous every time something happened, I’d have left Kuwait a long time ago.”

Yet a frequent comment by Americans and Kuwaiti nationals alike is that at least there cannot be a repetition of August 1990, when Iraqi forces swept into Kuwait City, the capital of this nation of 2.3 million, and began a brutal seven-month occupation.

Back then, thousands of Americans were forced to stay inside their homes for fear of being singled out for persecution by Iraqi troops.

But in 1990, there were no U.S. troops along the desert that separates Iraq and Kuwait. Now, there are an estimated 30,000, with thousands more scheduled to arrive within days.

“It makes me feel good to know the Patriots [missiles] are here,” said Lorey Cross of Atlanta, who works in a program that helps Kuwaiti students go to the U.S. to study.

And if some Americans are comforted by the presence of the military, others seek solace elsewhere. Anecdotal evidence suggests that church attendance has increased among Westerners.

“You have to believe in something, or you’ll leave Kuwait,” said George H. Lee of Horsham, Pa., vice president of Gittens’ American General Trading & Contracting. “A lot of people are getting closer to God.”