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Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait
Mary Ann Tétreault
2000
Chapter 5: Iraqi Occupation and Kuwaiti Democracy
The takeover of a country by a foreign power is hardly recommended as a recipe for expanding freedom and human rights. Yet one outcome of the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait was to increase the political capital of Kuwaiti opponents of domestic autocracy. The invasion also enlarged the arena where the struggle for democratic reform in Kuwait was fought. Individuals and groups formerly on the sidelines mobilized to support reform domestically, while foreign constituencies favoring liberalization also expanded. These changes helped to shift the balance between the regime and its opponents in favor of pro-democracy elements.
In this chapter, I examine three primary reasons why the Iraqi invasion effected a shift in the balance of power between pro- and antidemocratization forces in Kuwait. First, the invasion destroyed the myth of diplomatic prowess that had been an important element in the regime’s claim to popular support: a broad spectrum of Kuwaitis agreed that the invasion marked a failure of the system itself, not simply of the persons occupying positions of responsibility at the time. It also demonstrated the risks of censorship and of relying on a closed group to make life-and-death decisions for the nation. Both pointed up the practical utility of democratic rights and procedures.
A second element in this shift centers on the politics of Kuwaiti exiles. During the occupation, the unity of Kuwaitis outside the country was an important ingredient in the campaign to mobilize support for the liberation of Kuwait by coalition forces. The regime’s opponents used this leverage to pry concessions from the ruling family regarding how Kuwait would be governed after liberation. Although the government abused the spirit and the letter of many of its promises, it was forced to keep the main one: following liberation, elections would be held for a new parliament. These elections took place in October 1992 and erased most of the amir’s political gains from his 1990 Majlis al-Watani coup.
Third, the invasion altered the psychology of those Kuwaitis who embraced the experience of the occupation, at home or in exile, rather than hiding from, denying, or escaping it. These persons are a minority among Kuwaitis; postliberation Kuwait also is home to many people who seem virtually unchanged by their experiences, and to some whom the invasion and occupation left with psychological problems—especially terrified children and victims of Iraqi torture and abuse. Even so, the invasion produced a broad spectrum of Kuwaitis who are more confident and have clearer visions of what democracy means in daily life than they did before August 1990. These persons are a force for progressive reform and a reservoir of practical experience on how to achieve it. As long as they live and remain in Kuwait, they constitute as well a reservoir of information that contradicts the regime’s revisionist campaigns about the invasion, and they embody some of its most valuable lessons about freedom and agency.
Regime Failure
Virtually every observer of the events of July and August 1990 was surprised by the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait. 1 From the perspective of most Kuwaitis, the actions of their government were primarily responsible, both for the invasion itself and for the complete unreadiness of the population and most of its putative defenders to protect themselves against it. Such criticism of the Kuwaiti government centers on two charges. The first is provocation—did Kuwait’s oil production policy and then its diplomatic errors goad Iraq into invading? The second is the control of information and the means of defense—if Kuwaitis, including those in military and police forces, had realized the danger they were in, would they have been better able to protect themselves? And were Kuwait’s defenses properly organized and supplied to do the job they were expected to do?
Even before the Iraqi invasion, many Kuwaitis expressed their uneasiness at Saddam’s threatening reaction to Kuwait’s persistent overproduction of crude oil. 2 The same critics also blamed government corruption and ineptitude for Kuwait’s general economic malaise. Nearly all of them dismissed the importance of the global recession and the low world price of oil as factors explaining Kuwait’s domestic economic situation. Some even said that Kuwait’s overproduction was responsible for keeping world oil prices low—a judgment that vastly overstates Kuwait’s market power, but one that coincided nicely with the views of Saddam Hussein.
The fervor of the opposition explains why the government was willing to risk foreign policy credibility in OPEC and other international bodies by ratcheting up oil production beginning in the summer of 1989. As more and more people and groups rallied to the pro-democracy movement, government leaders may well have believed that they had no choice but to resort to the only source of income they could influence directly—the oil market—for the resources needed to buy back popular support. And however unreasonable the opposition’s condemnation of the government’s economic strategy was construed to be by outsiders, these criticisms were based on observations and analyses that were widely shared among Kuwaitis. 3
Oil policy is a contested issue in Kuwait. Since the 1970s, the government has gradually increased its control of the domestic oil industry and decisions on how to exploit it. 4 Citizens, however influential, had little hope of affecting Kuwait’s oil policy except through parliamentary debate and action. Only when constitutional rights and protections were in effect could the parliament force the government to explain and perhaps to modify its decisions. For example, in 1974 the Kuwaiti government wanted to follow Saudi Arabia’s lead and limit the percentage of foreign oil holdings to be nationalized. Debates in parliament publicized the issue and pushed the government to agree to nationalize completely before the end of the decade. 5 That same parliament also passed legislation limiting oil production, first to three million barrels per day (mbd) and then to two mbd. Members of the government feared that this would tie their hands in OPEC, but parliamentarians saw their position as protecting both Kuwaiti hydrocarbon reservoirs and OPEC’s price structure. 6 The sharp difference in perspective on Kuwaiti oil and gas policy between the government and the parliament explains why many government initiatives in this regard, such as the 1980 creation of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, were launched during periods of parliamentary suspension.
Similarly, the composition of the nation’s investment portfolio has been treated as a state secret. The parliament tried repeatedly to get accurate and complete information about Kuwait’s financial position, but it was consistently checked by government intransigence and the threat of dissolution should it come too close to learning enough to challenge the legitimacy of the regime’s control of the country’s wealth. Several members of the 1985 parliament, along with independent economist Jasim al-Sa`doun, agree with parliamentarian and oil policy specialist `Abdullah Nibari in attributing the 1986 suspension of parliament, at least in part, to its ongoing investigation of the government’s fiscal activities, including those managed by the oil minister. 7 The 1992 and the 1996 parliaments contested the government’s assertion that a minister cannot be tried in the regular criminal court for fiscal malfeasance connected to his position. The official in question is that same, now-former oil minister, Shaikh `Ali al-Khalifa (also see subsequent chapters).
The personality as well as the policies of `Ali al-Khalifa have always goaded the regime’s critics. `Ali al-Khalifa held positions in the finance ministry before, during, and after his tenure as oil minister, a job he assumed in 1978. 8 From all these positions, he influenced the nature and direction of Kuwaiti investments for many years, a time during which `Ali al-Khalifa’s activities attracted almost as much blame as praise from individuals and groups inside Kuwait. 9 `Ali al-Khalifa had opposed the parliament’s move to nationalize foreign oil holdings, perhaps most notably on a television program where `Abdullah Nibari also was a participant. Jasim al-Sa`doun believes that `Ali al-Khalifa did this to get attention and curry favor with government insiders. “By opposing the parliament, he got himself in good with the government. He came into the government after that. He is smart. He says things the rest do not understand. They accepted him as a permanent member—and he is a Sabah, after all.” 10 However, the encounter between `Ali al-Khalifa and `Abdullah Nibari impressed the opposition far less than it impressed the government. A decade later, the parliament had no qualms about challenging his decisions as oil minister.
`Ali al-Khalifa seems always to have had nothing but disdain for the parliament as an institution and for its members as individuals, and remains convinced that few people in Kuwait understand the complexities of international finance. 11 Throughout his tenure as a government minister, he treated parliamentary demands for information and explanations of his policies as malevolent and pestilential attacks rather than as a normal part of political life. These attitudes help to explain why, as soon as parliament was suspended in 1985, `Ali al-Khalifa halted oil ministry reporting of even the most basic industry data, such as oil production levels, to other government ministries. As a result, it became impossible for Kuwaitis to obtain official information on the domestic oil industry or the minister’s activities. If they wanted to know what was going on in their own oil industry, an official in another ministry told me in the spring of 1990, “We have to read it in MEES.” 12
Already suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his decision to purchase Santa Fe International in 1981, `Ali al-Khalifa’s critics felt their fears as well as their hackles rising in response to his 1987 attempt to take a controlling interest in British Petroleum. The most knowledgeable among them said openly that `Ali al-Khalifa was running amok. They viewed his preinvasion oil production policy as merely the most recent in a long line of bad decisions that endangered Kuwaiti national security. The provocation to Iraq arising from Kuwait’s rate of oil production was interpreted by the opposition as a direct consequence of the lack of openness in government. Under `Ali al-Khalifa, decisions were made after little consultation, and the minister was noted for his unwillingness to treat alternative proposals, however tactfully offered or technically well supported, as worthy of consideration.
A similar lack of openness and unwillingness to listen were cited as reasons for the refusal of Kuwaiti leaders to take Iraq’s threats seriously or to negotiate with its representatives in good faith. The Iraqi version of the talks between Crown Prince Sa`d al-`Abdullah and the Iraqi representatives who met in Saudi Arabia on July 31, 1990, was widely publicized and dominated most contemporary interpretations of events. 13 In this version, the Kuwaitis were said to have behaved arrogantly, “like small-time grocery store owners.” 14 The collapse of the talks was blamed on the Kuwaitis rather than on the Iraqis even though neither side seems to have made any concessions to the other. 15
Kuwaiti leaders had difficulty believing that Iraq’s threats were anything more than bluffing. 16 Few insiders took the threats seriously, despite reports from low-ranking Kuwaiti military officers stationed in Baghdad that they were sure that Saddam’s military preparations meant he really intended to invade Kuwait. 17 Leaders of the Kuwaiti military also seemed unaware of the potential danger, and no attempt was made to recall any of the large number of senior officers out of the country on vacation. 18 In fact, Kuwait’s troop alert level was “quietly” downgraded a short time before the invasion. 19 This action was taken in response to a call by Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak that each side work toward a reduction in tensions. 20
The Iraqis continued with their war preparations. During the second week in July, Iraq’s petroleum minister requested from his Kuwaiti counterpart permission for Iraq to send five technicians for training on the liquified petroleum gas facility at the Kuwait National Petroleum Corporation (KNPC), the KPC subsidiary in charge of domestic refining.
Coming through the oil minister it was a bit fishy. But we brought five men to the South Pier for training. By the third of August they were in their uniforms. They were the officers for the troops that had come in. . . . [They understood] that the LPG was dangerous. . . . They were trained in Iraq and then here to lead the troops and handle the facility safely. 21
Troops began massing on the border a week before the invasion. Shortly after, a meeting between Iraqi representatives and the Kuwaiti crown prince held in Jidda on July 31, ended in a stalemate.
Meanwhile, although the presence of masses of Iraqi troops on the Kuwaiti border was visible in U.S. satellite photographs made available to the Kuwaiti government, most Kuwaiti citizens were completely ignorant of the extent of the danger. “All except those who regularly monitored foreign radio knew little about the crisis, because censorship had banned any mention of it in local newspapers and broadcasts.” 22 Even after the invasion was under way, the information ban continued.
At that time there was nothing on the news whatsoever. Kuwait Radio is just giving slogans. I am not a radio listener. I looked for stations I had heard about, like VOA and BBC, but they are not clear except at night. The only station was from Saudi Arabia and they didn’t mention anything. At 9:30 [a.m. on August 2] I got another call from my brother [in the Kuwaiti air force]. He said Iraqi tanks completely surrounded the airport and I knew that if they had gotten there it was all over. 23
I have heard scores of stories from Kuwaitis about how their first inkling of danger came as they were awakened on the morning of August 2 by the sound of gunfire, or by telephone calls from friends and relations outside the country relating news they had learned on radio or television about Kuwait having been invaded.
The response of Kuwaiti military leaders to the invasion was just like the response of the Kuwaiti government. With a few notable exceptions, like brigade commander Salim al-Masa`ud, who commanded an armored unit that held the Iraqis off the Jahra’ Ridge for several hours before the Kuwaitis ran out of ammunition and had to retreat, 24 they got out as quickly as possible. Military personnel below a certain level were not permitted to have live ammunition and thus could not even defend themselves in the absence of the officers authorized to distribute it. Desertion by their officers left troops without leadership as well.
I instructed the people working for me, after they had secured their wells, to go home. The emergency room was open and we gave instructions. . . . After evening prayer [on August 2] we sat with the neighbors and tried to think what we should do. But we had no information. We passed the Ahmadi governorate and all the soldiers were sitting on their cars. They did not know what to do. 25
A Kuwait Drilling Company supervisor described how his next-door neighbor, a general in the Kuwaiti army, had handed over the keys to his house the night after the invasion with instructions to “keep an eye on things.” Then he got in his car and drove away. 26
Such stories made the rounds quickly among Kuwaitis and confirmed their worst suspicions about the government’s incompetence. However, the fact that the amir and crown prince had fled was viewed with mixed feelings. Every Kuwaiti I have discussed this with emphasized the importance of the amir as the symbol of Kuwaiti unity. Using terms that would be familiar to students of the relationship of the emperor to Japanese national identity, they stressed the centrality of the amir in efforts to mobilize Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis to liberate the country. High-level government employees who left Kuwait, some with reluctance, during the first weeks after the invasion, also underscored the necessity that persons with institutional authority avoid capture in case their physical custody could be used by the Iraqis to take control of Kuwait’s overseas assets or provide a shield for an occupation government.
The Iraqi plan [after Jidda] was to continue the talks in Baghdad and then capture the Kuwaiti prime minister and force him to denounce the amir. . . . In this case, the invasion would appear fairly legitimate; it would look like a ruling family quarrel with the Iraqis being generous to support the good ones in the family. 27
According to Ghanim al-Najjar, the Iraqi press announced the continuation of talks in Baghdad but, the attempt to capture the crown prince having failed, had to search for another Kuwaiti notable to front for them. They attempted to get Faisal al-Sana`, a Ba`athist and a member of the 1985 parliament, to form a government. He refused twice and, after the second attempt, was urged by his friends to leave the country. “But he rejected the idea. He was thinking he may be able to save some lives.” Shortly afterward, Faisal was arrested, along with most of his family and, in 1999, remains a prisoner in Iraq. 28
Politics in Exile
During the hot Kuwaiti summers, many residents take their vacations abroad. On August 2, 1990, about a third of the Kuwaiti population was out of the country. They soon were joined by a flood of refugees who managed to escape in the early days and weeks of the occupation, followed by a trickle of individuals and groups who continued to make their way out of the country throughout the occupation. 29 The refugees, most of whom were foreigners, made up another third of the population. 30
Some exiles adjusted rapidly to their situation. They began to work within a short time of receiving news of the invasion, providing assistance to refugees, arguing on radio and television for international intervention to roll back the invasion, and planning for postwar reconstruction. 31 Their own outsider status made it difficult (though not impossible) for them to criticize their leaders for fleeing the country while other Kuwaitis suffered at the hands of Iraqi occupiers. Most of the exiles I interviewed recounted with pride the story of the one senior member of the ruling family, Shaikh Fahad al-Ahmad, who had died fighting Iraqis in the vicinity of the Seif Palace. This is the mythic ideal describing how Kuwait’s leaders and defenders ought to have acted; but the story is told quite differently by some of the Kuwaitis who remained in Kuwait and since then have moved on from Kuwait’s preinvasion family romance to a more autonomous vision of what it means to be a Kuwaiti citizen. 32
Exiled Kuwaitis represented a broad spectrum of political views. Even though they were scattered geographically, activists continued to press these views on members of the government-in-exile in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, both because members of the opposition were overrepresented in the politically active exile community, 33 and because much of the non-Kuwaiti constituency that would have to be mobilized behind an allied invasion to retake Kuwait from the Iraqis saw little difference between the amir and Saddam Hussein, 34 the government was heavily pressured from several sides to show itself as the more democratic alternative.
During the first weeks of the occupation, the government—with the notable exception of the-then finance minister, `Ali al-Khalifa—seemed to be paralyzed. 37 The cabinet was new, having been formed shortly after the June 10 election. Still, most cabinet members had had prior experience in the government. It was their bizarre situation that was so immobilizing. The amir had installed the government in the Saudi resort town of Taif. Life in luxury hotels in the sight of mountains was a surreal contrast to CNN’s coverage of life in occupied Kuwait. The new routine for the government-in-exile was less like work than a vacation of indefinite length, with no one among them knowing when—or whether—they would be able to return to anything approaching the Kuwait they had known before.
The torpor of the Kuwaiti government was disturbed by a rising chorus of citizen complaints. These came from opposition leaders, who had begun meeting regularly in London shortly after the invasion, and from other Kuwaitis in various locations and from all walks of life. They asked pointed questions about the causes of the invasion and the responses of their government. They wanted to know why the army had withdrawn without a fight; why there had been no attempt to negotiate a voluntary withdrawal during the early hours of the invasion; and who would manage, control, and reap the benefits from Kuwait’s overseas resources, its blue-chip securities, and the oil industry assets owned by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) while the Iraqis held Kuwait. 36 Unlike most of their government, these Kuwaitis were not idle. The Kuwaiti capacity for self-government is attested by the spontaneous formation of numberless groups, inside Kuwait as well as among the exiles, set up to sustain the Kuwaiti nation. Some exiles established organizations to publicize the plight of occupied Kuwait. 37 The government-in-exile took over the financing of at least two of these groups, the Washington-based Citizens for a Free Kuwait (CFK) and the London-based Free Kuwait Association (FKA). The Washington group was taken over even further when most of its activities were centralized under the leadership of a “high-powered [American] public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton,” hired by representatives of the government-in-exile. 38 The Free Kuwait Association seems to have remained somewhat more open, although the formation of another London-based group, the all-volunteer Free Kuwait Campaign (FKC), attests both to the lack of opportunity for grassroots activism in the FKA and the strong desire of Kuwaiti exiles to participate directly in efforts to liberate their country.
Other exiles organized themselves to prepare for the problems they expected to find after liberation. Many of these groups included persons working for KPC. Their company affiliation, together with their common concerns, facilitated communication and coordination. A group in Houston gathered information about oil well fire-fighting, spurred by reports from occupied Kuwait describing the Iraqi mining of oil wells which had begun during the second week of the occupation. 39 Later, an office was set up for this group to interview fire-fighting companies. The Houston group was an offshoot of a Washington-based committee working under nominal government leadership to coordinate planning for the postliberation period. The Washington planners were headed by Kuwait’s World Bank representative, Fawzi Sultan, and included non-Kuwaiti employees of KPC affiliates, officials from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, and other representatives of the World Bank.
Meanwhile, the London offices of Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI), the holding company coordinating the operations of most of KPC’s overseas operations, became the main operating base for Kuwait’s oil-industry-in-exile. As soon as they heard about the invasion, KPC personnel, many on vacation in various parts of the world, headed for London. Their immediate attention allowed the company to salvage cargoes of Kuwait crude already on the water, as well as three ships that were in port in Kuwait at the time of the invasion. During the occupation, executives and managers crammed into KPI’s London headquarters to run Kuwait’s overseas oil operations. Whoever was in KPI’s Bond Street offices on Friday afternoons met, sometimes for several hours, to exchange information and decide what do next. 40
A group composed of seven operations managers also worked in the KPI offices—one participant who had been contacted in Kuwait in September was asked to come to London to join his peers—to develop comprehensive plans for oil industry reconstruction following liberation. 41 The several groups coordinated their activities so that each one’s plans would support rather than compete with the rest. Every one of the exile groups that Kuwaitis formed on their own initiative, to do everything from locating the whereabouts of their fellow citizens to working for the liberation and eventual reconstruction of their country, confirms Hannah Arendt’s conviction that individuals in their plurality have an enormous capacity for autonomous action.
In the face of the widespread criticism of the government and rapidly mounting evidence that Kuwaitis could manage their affairs very nicely without the direct participation of their rulers, the amir agreed to call a meeting of exiles in October 1990 to “make a show of national solidarity.” 42 Before this meeting, attended by between 1,200 and 1,300 Kuwaitis, the crown prince cut a deal with two prominent opposition leaders, Ahmad al-Sa`doun, speaker of the 1985 parliament, and `Abd al-`Aziz al-Saqr, president of the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce. The crown prince and `Abd al-`Aziz al-Saqr made conciliatory speeches at the meeting, which was held in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, in mid-October. A communiqué was issued at the end of the meeting in which the opposition pledged to support the continuation of the Sabah as the ruling family of Kuwait and the ruling family pledged to restore the Kuwaiti constitution after liberation. At the Jidda meeting, the crown prince also agreed to set up a consultative committee that would include members of the opposition “in the critical decision making process undertaken by the government in exile.” 43
However, from the rulers’ point of view, there was already entirely too much participation by the self-appointed in affairs they saw as rightfully theirs to dominate. According to Ahmad al-Sa`doun, there was no post-Jidda inclusion of representatives of the opposition in any of the committees planning for the postliberation period. 44 Instead, and in the name of broadening participation in the process, the self-organized committees planning for reentry were superseded by a regime-imposed gatekeeper who canceled most of the arrangements they had so painstakingly worked out.
The gatekeeper was former housing minister Ibrahim Shahin, who is connected to the Kuwaiti Islamist movement. He replaced Fawzi Sultan as the head of the Washington group, and was charged with approving all the contracts for supplies and services needed to put liberated Kuwait back together again. Industry personnel I spoke to agreed without exception that Ibrahim Shahin was unqualified to understand, much less to alter or overrule, their intricate plans for oil well fire-fighting and postwar industry reconstruction. But Ibrahim Shahin had not been appointed for his expertise. His ignorance and inexperience, helped along by the judicious planting of stories accusing participants on the independent committees of corruption, ended up by discrediting much of the work of those committees. 45 Meanwhile, committee members were encouraged by the rumor mill to believe that the appointment of Ibrahim Shahin had been masterminded by Kuwaiti merchants—including prominent leaders of the opposition—greedy for reconstruction contracts. 46 By this one appointment, the government was able to drive a wedge between the political opposition and committee technocrats which prevented them from developing common interests that could have united them after liberation.
The October Jidda meeting was a political gamble for the government, but it paid off. The apparent harmony between the government and the opposition pacified leaders of coalition governments, especially the United States, initially worried about the strength and depth of the regime’s commitment to postwar democratization. 47 At the same time, the success of the even riskier strategy of appearing to broaden the base of the planning committees while scuttling most of their arrangements and discrediting their members enabled the rulers to increase their authority over the exile community. It also gave the government greater control of preparations for reentry, which initially were monopolized by the technocrats.
Kuwaiti leaders felt sufficiently secure to call a second meeting in Jidda in January 1991, shortly before the commencement of hostilities. At Jidda II, government spokesmen “harp[ed] on” the threat to national security from presumed Iraqi moles planted among the Kuwaiti population and, for the first time in public, singled out the Palestinians as the official scapegoats of the invasion. 48 Expressions of concern about possible subversives indicated that the rulers already were looking for ways to delay the elections promised at Jidda I, and foreshadowed the announcement made two weeks after the war began on January 15, which was that the government would impose martial law as soon as Kuwait was liberated.
Opposition leaders were openly angry about the way the government had violated the promises made at Jidda I. They demanded the resignation of the cabinet and the formation of a “government of national salvation” that would include secular nationalists along with Islamists. They referred by name to members of the ruling family in their criticisms. “Even the crown prince and prime minister . . . who has generally maintained a much higher level of popularity than the amir . . . has been called a liar by such respected opposition figures as Dr Ahmad al-Khatib.” 49 Yet despite their concerns, and the ugliness that marked the reimposition of Al Sabah hegemony over Kuwaiti domestic politics during the first months following liberation, Kuwaiti democrats did make gains as the result of their activities during exile.
The democrats were assisted by the continuing interest of the foreign press and the governments that had played leading roles in the coalition. The promises of Jidda I to restore the constitution and hold elections were widely reported and had been favorably reviewed. Opposition protests at the government’s disregard of these promises also were reported, though less widely. Other news reports told about government attempts to repress the opposition following liberation. These included accounts of the closure by police forces of public meetings in liberated Kuwait and attacks by death squads on two prominent opponents of the regime. Hamad al-Jou`an, a member of the 1985 parliament, was the only survivor of these attacks. His wife was a featured speaker at a Washington conference in April 1991 sponsored by the National Republican Institute for International Affairs. In town with her husband, who had come to get medical treatment for complications arising from his wounds, she described the assassination attempt in detail and was an eloquent witness to the climate of fear and violence that persisted in Kuwait despite the ouster of the Iraqi occupiers. 50
The perception among Kuwaitis that “the world is watching Kuwait,” assisted by the pro-democracy efforts of Kuwaiti exiles and their foreign supporters, improved prospects for postwar democratization. Before the invasion, the main foreign interest in Kuwaiti domestic politics had come from Kuwait’s immediate neighbors, chiefly Saudi Arabia, who dislike democracy on principle and consistently have urged Kuwaiti rulers to crack down on their opponents. Following liberation, a new external audience sought a postwar Kuwait worthy of the massive effort that had been required to end the occupation. This meant a Kuwait that was more than just an improvement over Iraq; postliberation Kuwait was expected to show an improvement over its own preinvasion record.
The Transformation of Consciousness by Occupation
Abandonment by their leaders and defenders forced Kuwaitis remaining inside Kuwait to fend for themselves against an occupying army busily engaged in looting the country and abusing its residents. Within days, groups of Kuwaitis had coalesced into pockets of organized resistance. Women and men, Shi`a and Sunna, the not-so-rich and the well-to-do, demonstrated, plotted, and engaged in commando operations until murderous reprisals forced a halt to their more provocative activities toward the end of October 1990. 51 Kuwaiti insiders also employed passive resistance against the Iraqis, with most refusing to go to work or assist the occupiers in any way. Of those who reported to their jobs, most did so in order to certify their employees for salary payments and to sequester data and equipment. A handful of engineers continued to operate utilities so that residents would have electricity and water, using their privileged positions as guarantors of the occupiers’ comforts to gather information which they transmitted overseas by ham radio, satellite telephones, and fax machines. 52
Other Kuwaitis, including lower-level military officers, members of prominent merchant families such as the Sultans and al-Wazzans, and at least three members of the Sabah, 53 worked in the Resistance. Merchants gave away food and consumer goods from their business inventories and distributed money to the Kuwaiti population so that people could continue to purchase what they needed from whatever source was available. 54 Among the most important sources and distributors of food during the occupation were the neighborhood cooperatives. In 1990 Kuwait’s forty-two cooperative societies had more than 170,000 members. Their main activity is to purchase and sell retail meat, groceries, fruits, vegetables, and household supplies, and at that time they controlled more than four-fifths of the market in these goods. 55 Their location throughout the country made the cooperatives useful for the Iraqis as well as for Kuwaitis. While Iraqis looted most other Kuwaiti businesses, the cooperatives, like utility companies, were allowed to continue operating because they provided essential products and services to the Kuwaiti population, including the occupiers. Consequently, cooperatives continued to sell food and they also distributed goods to needy families. Their presence in every neighborhood, along with their pivotal role in the local cash economy, made them critical elements in Kuwaiti Resistance activities.
The physical presence of the premises of cooperative societies in every residential neighborhood, [made] the cooperatives . . . a focal point for communication. . . . The inter-connectedness of the cooperative societies meant that cooperative administrators could travel freely from district to district without attracting the suspicions of the Iraqi authorities . . . an invaluable channel of communication during the occupation. . . . Cooperatives [also] were able to enter into agreements with suppliers to obtain supplies on credit thus augmenting the funds available to them. An important use of the surplus funds was to pay bribes to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of detainees. 56
Functioning businesses such as the cooperatives and privately owned merchant operations provided protected spaces from which Kuwaiti Resistance activists and those merchants who had stayed behind could learn about the weaknesses of the Iraqi occupation and decide how to exploit them for the benefit of Kuwaitis. Iraqi merchants paid Iraqi generals to let them enter Kuwait to sell goods.
The Iraqi merchant gives a very small amount of Iraqi dinars [to be allowed to enter Kuwait and then be introduced to local merchants. I asked the general], how much did they give you. He said three hundred Iraqi dinars. I said, I will do better than that—thirteen thousand dinars. He couldn’t believe it. He started working hard [to get more merchants to bring goods into Kuwait]. We gave them watches, perfume for their wives. These are big generals. They start to be different. Instead of trying to get things by force, let’s be friends, to get what we want and to protect what we have. 57
However, their activities were risky and some paid a heavy price for them. “Look at Khaled Sultan. He stayed and was captured and even tortured. Even some officers were captured. They kept changing houses even if they knew they would be killed if they were caught.” 58 Defying the occupation always carried high risks and some Kuwaitis paid with their lives.
Mubarak al-Nout was the director of the al-Ardhiah cooperative society and a friend of mine. We used to call him the poet of the constitutional movement. [During the occupation] he was active in distributing our underground newsletter, the “Popular Steadfastness.” [After he was arrested by the Iraqis] he was brought to the parking lot of the cooperative and was shot in the head in front of everybody. I saw him only two days before he was executed. I was with a friend trying to get the cooperative to help handicapped people whose homes are near the society. I saw him keep Iraqi soldiers from entering the society without a permit. 59
The social and economic poverty of the Iraqi military, which extended to the highest ranks, provided more than the opportunity to bribe soldiers and officers to get things Kuwaitis needed. It also disposed many among the occupation forces to see themselves and their positions in a different light.
Small radios were distributed to soldiers to let them listen to outside. They are not allowed to do that. It puts fear in them. We gave them tapes. The Kuwaitis inside have done a lot to destabilize those people. Some young people come and sit with them and talk to them and help them, bring them food, tea. Because what they are receiving isn’t much. Dry bread like a rock. Some of the generals, when they sit with me, they close the doors and start to talk about unhappiness. . . . They said they do not want to go back to Iraq. . . . So they turned their machine guns [over] to Kuwaitis. 60
The unhappiness of well-placed Iraqi occupiers marks a strange contrast to stories from Kuwaiti activists that highlight their own satisfaction at all they managed to do under these difficult conditions. Here we should remember that, on the whole, the borders were relatively porous throughout most of the occupation, particularly for Kuwaiti nationals. I listened every morning to Deborah Amos’s daily reports from Saudi Arabia on NPR. Periodically she would broadcast interviews with Kuwaitis—a number of whom I knew personally—who had just crossed the border. Some Kuwaitis traveled in and out several times, bringing money and supplies to those inside and carrying news in both directions. As counterintuitive as it seems, it is hard to escape the conclusion that many Kuwaitis who stayed inside throughout the occupation remained by choice.
We did not leave. We didn’t want to sit or beg. I would rather die here, in front of my house, with my family, than go outside and beg. . . . This is our place and we can’t be anywhere else. We want to cooperate with our ruling family but they don’t trust us. Kuwaitis have to wake every morning [and face who they are]. No Kuwaiti cooperated with the occupier. [Kuwaitis] asked the ruling family to come [back to Kuwait]. 61
On the second day of the invasion, I went with two of my friends down near the Saudi border. I stopped cars going to escape. “Why are you leaving?” I asked them. I stopped a man with a wife and a small child. They had a Mercedes and were driving through the desert. “Do you know the way?” I asked him. “No,” he said. “You have a very heavy car,” I said. “What if you get stuck in the desert and you don’t know where you are? You could die. Wouldn’t you rather die in your own country?” 62
How can you have a country where people desert? . . . These type of people, I can’t depend on them. I moved back to Kuwait City to stay with my folks. In our neighborhood [in the city] we had twenty-one houses. Only one house was empty. The father and mother were out but the kids stayed [in Kuwait] and they came [regularly] to check the house. In Subahiya almost all fled. . . . Why did some stay in the country and others go out? 63
The occupation gave Kuwaiti insiders the opportunity to see themselves in a different light.
I took another occupation. I became the imam in the mosque. It was very risky, especially for Friday prayers. You have to give a speech and you have to be careful. I didn’t know how but I did it. I had to act brave and it taught me something. Even in the last days, when people were rounded up in the streets, I kept going. 64
During the occupation, I did a lot of “nice” things. I was responsible for collecting all the rubbish in my area and also I secured some food for the people and some money also. I had some friends who forged some documents. But mostly I was in charge of rubbish. I protected my old mother and my sister. . . . During the invasion we experienced equality and the true spirit of the liberation. After the liberation we are going back more and more to the way it was before . . . and we are not the same Kuwaiti people as during the invasion. 65
I was outside and came in for two months and then went back outside. I smuggled [myself] through the border on the ninth or eighth of August and stayed until October. During my presence I participated in the cooperative. I was responsible for my house block. I opened a small supermarket. I and my friends operated this supermarket. Also with my friends I was responsible for the British Airways crew, to hide them, feed them, and take care of them. The main reason for me to leave Kuwait was my sister who was late in her pregnancy. The only way to save her life was to [get her out of the country]. . . . Then I went to the army. I trained at Fort Dix. Then I . . . deployed to the eighth evacuation hospital. 66
A few Kuwaitis returned once they discovered that it was possible to manage under Iraqi occupation. Some actually were recruited by insiders. Ghanim al-Najjar was part of a group of Kuwaiti insiders who started a weekly bus service between Kuwait and Iraq so that Kuwaitis could visit members of their families who had been arrested and taken out of the country.
After the invasion we had an organization that from November [1990] until January [1991] organized trips for the prisoners’ families, taking them by bus from Kuwait to prisons all over Iraq. . . . We found out where various people were being held because some Kuwaitis knew high-ranking Iraqis. [Then] letters started to arrive—when you are under siege you hear all sorts of things and we had heard about the prisoners but nothing [certain]. Then we had a letter from my sister’s husband [one of those who had been taken prisoner] and I took her [to Iraq] with some other women with sons and husbands in that prison. I rented a bus and we were able to see them. . . . [The Iraqis had cut all the telephone lines connecting Kuwait to the outside, but] we could phone people outside from Baghdad. We called people to tell them what the conditions were in Kuwait. They were very surprised—they wanted to know if it was possible to survive. We said yes and urged them to come back. They flew into Baghdad from Cairo, from the Emirates—I would bring an empty bus for them. My sister was in Saudi Arabia. I called her—“How are things?” she asked me. I said, “OK.” She came back. I picked her up in Basra and took her home on the bus. 67
Ghanim’s wife and children were outside Kuwait when the invasion occurred and they too came back. Ghanim met them at the airport in Baghdad. “It was an emotional moment. I did not know whether I would ever see my wife and children again.” 68
Despite these examples, however, insiders are the first to say that not all those who remained behind or returned to occupied Kuwait were heroes.
Not all the people inside the town were courageous. Some stayed because they were afraid to leave their houses. You must have heard all the stories about Kuwaitis who spent the occupation in their basements. I know one. . . . Everyone convinced him to go out one day. He went for a walk into another block and the Iraqis surrounded it. He went to a friend and stayed there and the next day he went home and never came out again. 69
In fact, many inside found the occupation stressful, not because it was particularly dangerous but because it was so boring. 70 Foreigners had to stay hidden, so they were shut in except when they were moving to another house. Kuwait University economist Eqbal al-Rahmani says that female residents, especially those who, like her, had an ill family member to comfort and care for, were confined almost as closely as the foreigners.
Throughout the occupation, thanks to the Resistance distribution networks, Kuwaitis were able to get food. With little else to do, many cooked—and ate—elaborate meals. But mostly they talked, read, and watched television. What they saw was not particularly reassuring.
We heard many reports about rapes, but I don’t believe they were accurate. If six thousand women were raped you would have to know one of them. My friend in Doha works in a hospital and did not see any. . . . The news about war crimes was exaggerated in Europe and the United States. This propaganda scared Kuwaitis. 71
The story of the occupation has been an object of struggle between insiders and exiles that began well before liberation. Reports of atrocities are part of this story. Even after liberation, exiles told many more stories about atrocities than insiders. During the occupation, atrocity stories were used to mobilize populations in coalition countries to support armed intervention to reverse the invasion. Documenting atrocities after the war was necessary to support war crimes claims and to bolster Kuwaiti efforts to retain United Nations sanctions on Iraq until all UN demands had been met by Saddam Hussein and his government.
But atrocity stories served other purposes as well, purposes that became clearer after liberation. Occupation stories told by insiders are tales of daring and triumph about how they coped and got the better of the occupiers while the exiles ran away. The traffic over the borders, and the relative ease with which Kuwaitis came into and occasionally even left the area through Baghdad, illustrate the agency of Kuwaiti insiders and their capacity to mobilize people and resources to meet their own needs. In contrast to the insiders’ stories about their experiences, atrocity stories reverse the polarity between those who fled and those who stayed. They transform insiders into passive victims and exiles into heroic rescuers. 72 New atrocity stories continued to be produced after liberation. During the fall of 1992, atrocity vignettes featuring graphic scenes of violence and terror and ending with the rescue of occupied Kuwait were shown as fillers between programs on government-controlled Kuwait TV.
Dr. Buthaina al-Muqahawe, a Kuwaiti psychologist who remained inside throughout the occupation, reports that many exiles continue to live with severe guilt as the result of having been outside and safe while their country was under attack. 73 Such persons have a strong need to deny or assuage these feelings. A European diplomat stationed in Kuwait in 1992 told me that he thought the TV vignettes were intended to do precisely that. 74 The fact that former exiles outnumber insiders and occupy the majority of positions of power in Kuwaiti politics and society may explain why the feelings of insiders were and are so freely sacrificed for the psychological comfort of exiles. Additionally, atrocity vignettes rehabilitate the image of Kuwaiti leaders, quintessential outsiders with more than psychological needs to attend to.
Rape stories are almost a category by themselves in the rhetorical conflict between insiders and exiles. Sexual violation is viewed with greater horror than murder by many Kuwaitis because of the cultural importance of female chastity as the primary marker of family honor. 75 The “six thousand rapes” bolstered postliberation efforts to discredit those who had remained in Kuwait during the invasion. As one insider put it, “After the liberation, the people who returned said there were no women with honor [in families that had stayed behind] in Kuwait.”
Like the campaigns against actual and potential opponents of the government among exiled activists, campaigns to minimize the work of the Resistance were subtle and designed to reestablish the regime’s hegemony over Kuwaiti society. With notable exceptions, most Resistance survivors were ignored and some became targets of whispering campaigns like those directed against exiled technocrats and members of the political opposition. Rape stories dishonored Resistance members and implied that they were incompetent. Indeed, the Resistance figures most frequently honored during the first few years after liberation were “martyrs.” For those who are dead, a street has been renamed and public ceremonies are held. A Martyr’s Office was established in the Amiri Diwan, but its officials are reluctant even to publish a definitive list of martyrs because there is disagreement over who should be on it. Some Kuwaitis have declared their preferences by putting up their own street signs to honor individuals killed by the Iraqis. The government does not encourage this, not only because deciding who is a martyr is such a problem but because, no matter what criteria are chosen, there are too many names on the list.
The government devalued the Resistance by refusing to use its networks to distribute food and other supplies following liberation. The government had no alternative systems or personnel in place, and the population suffered hardships as a result of what were mostly avoidable shortages. This decision also prevented returning outsiders, who had had no firsthand experience of the effectiveness of Resistance organizations, from appreciating their capacity and competence. Consequently, they were unable to add to the pressure on the government to take advantage of these networks during the emergency, and had no opportunity to form an opinion of Resistance structures based on firsthand knowledge. Kuwaiti military forces trained abroad also were used to discredit the Resistance. They had no role in distributing supplies on the grounds that their job was to enforce martial law so they could disarm Resistance members said to be planning an insurrection against the government. Few Kuwaitis I spoke to gave any credence to the stories that Resistance activists were planning a coup, noting that no positive evidence had been offered in support of that contention.
Whispering campaigns—manufactured “urban legends”—were directed against prominent insiders, a number of whom are associated with the political opposition. Many are businessmen who were widely praised by insiders for their work distributing food, supplies, and currency, and for protecting foreigners wanted by the Iraqis to use as hostages. The whispering campaigns charged these men with having stayed in Kuwait during the occupation only to make money. They are accused of remaining to protect their property when the property of exiles was left undefended, dealing with the enemy for their own profit, and making money directly on their Resistance activities. The last charge was leveled at several involved in the distribution of currency, some of which came from inside and the rest from outside Kuwait. Dinars from abroad were said to have been tucked away or exchanged by the receivers into Iraqi dinars at highly favorable rates. 76 For several years, these negative stories cycled over and over; testimony by insiders to the selfless behavior of surviving Resistance activists seemed to evaporate as soon as it was uttered or printed. 77
The only Resistance activists who appear to have escaped being tainted by such stories and rumors are Islamists. Following the changes in the electoral system in the early 1980s, Islamists used board memberships in cooperative societies to mobilize neighborhood bases of support for future parliamentary candidacies. 78 Working from the protected spaces of cooperatives and mosques, Islamists, along with secular members of the Resistance, distributed food and medical supplies. 79 Mosques also were primary venues of information dissemination—the reason why those Friday speeches, referred to above by `Eisa bu Yabis, were such risky affairs—and they were dispensers of spiritual comfort. Many mosques relied on the services of “Friday preachers,” individuals who saw a need for leadership in their communities and, like `Eisa, stepped forward to provide it. Islamist candidates running for parliament in 1992 generally attracted high levels of early support, especially from young voters. 80 At least nineteen men elected to the 1992 parliament “had built their careers as members of cooperative society boards, or had some substantial involvement in the movement.” 81 According to Kuwaitis living in districts with prominent Islamist candidates, Islamists were believed to have been the backbone of the Resistance. Khaled al-`Adwa, a young religious scholar running from a tribal district, was able to parlay his identity as an Islamist into a position in parliament even though he had spent the occupation in exile.
The anti-insider stories are matched, in feeling if not in the quality of their plot and action, by the stories insiders tell about exiles. Whether told by insiders or outsiders, these stories owe as much to imagination as to systematic fact-gathering.
The ones inside did the job. From outside, you are far from the fire, the front, living in a five-star hotel, breakfast in bed, receiving salaries—some three thousand pounds per month. And it was fascinating to be living outside. 82
For a number of years I have been doing a survey of my classes about their attitudes toward political rights for women. In the last four semesters [at the time of the interview, the number since liberation], the first was very strong. The second, less. The third attacked women. They said women did nothing during the occupation. They were mostly bedouin in that class and the bedouin were the first to run away. 83
Foreign nationals who remained in Kuwait are as scornful of the exiles as Kuwaiti insiders.
There is a great division between them and us, those who stayed and those who were out. . . . The people who left could afford to leave. Some left because they had to. Some stayed because they were poor. Others stayed because they wouldn’t leave their country. Look how many Kuwaitis didn’t bring their families back. Sixty-five percent of school places are still vacant. For example, there are very few Mutawas back in the country. They are very wealthy with lots of property and business in the UK. 84
Despite the conflicts between insiders and exiles to control the story of the occupation, however, Kuwaitis from both groups had many opportunities to test themselves against conditions of adversity and to realize their capacity to behave honorably and effectively. Insofar as this opportunity was seized rather than avoided, Kuwaitis shared a defining experience regardless of where they were during the occupation.
I kept asking to join the army and eventually they called me and said we only want a few women and we think you would be good. Training was exciting. It was hard. But we earned the guys’ respect and it is very hard to earn Arab men’s respect. In the end they bragged that they were in the platoon with the girls. 85
Many look back on the occupation as a time of personal dedication, long hours and days of work, and intense feelings of community with other Kuwaitis.
It was very nice during the occupation. . . . Yes, people were rushing for available resources, but for one time we became the real genuine Kuwaiti society once again. We came to the people we know. Everyone knew how was the neighbor, did he need anything. We became the old fisherman society like the old days. 86
The FKC [Free Kuwait Campaign] was . . . the focus of action of the European press. We established very good relations with French TV and radio, Scandinavian TV and radio. . . . People manned the office until midnight—even through the night when things were going on. It’s the people who matter. The FKC had dedicated volunteers who were willing to go all over the country. It was a grassroots effort. . . . Most of us came to it totally unpoliticized. We were doing it merely to achieve the goal of Kuwaiti liberation. We had everybody—the Kuwaiti student union is Islamic [sic] Brotherhood—we would come in in jeans and they—they operate under codes. I don’t know the percent of women involved, but everyone will admit that, throughout, the women have shone. This is a testament that we as Kuwaiti women never had to fight for the right to do the work—we just did it. 87
We set up a KPC management group, but working as Kuwaitis, not as officials. We had . . . seven people. . . . We started planning with Bechtel, from November 15 until we reentered Kuwait. The planning, the material bought and stored in the Emirates, the scenarios—what if we came by sea and there are no port facilities—we planned for temporary port facilities down to the last crane. Bechtel had maybe two days for Christmas, but we all worked day and night. 88
We enjoyed talking to the Iraqis. This was part of our challenge. We laughed from inside. We knew that they are coming to steal rather than to occupy. . . . They were afraid. 89
The population stood really tall when the Iraqis came. 90
Lessons
The occupation provided lessons in practical democracy to Kuwaitis, inside and outside, who devoted themselves to the assistance of their fellow citizens and the restoration of their country. The various groups set up to meet the needs identified by their organizers were run, for the most part, democratically. This was so for organizations that were normally more hierarchical than horizontal, such as the oil industry management group working at KPI headquarters, as well as for ad hoc Resistance groups and the all-volunteer Free Kuwait Campaign. Where the government intervened in these groups, hierarchical organization was (re)established and the quality of what was accomplished compared unfavorably with preintervention efforts and with the efforts of those who continued to work democratically, those substantially free from government control. Two examples show this well.
The first was discussed above, that is, the government’s imposition of Ibrahim Shahin on the groups working on reentry and reconstruction. Although it is not possible to know how well the unobstructed arrangements would have worked, we do know that the intricate plans for reentry described above were seriously disrupted and that a procedure was imposed whose only clear-cut result was the introduction of systematic inefficiencies. Even firefighters were adversely affected by the Ibrahim Shahin “system,” and it took the intervention of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to exempt fire-fighting supplies and equipment from its constraints. 91 We know also that Ibrahim Shahin’s appointment caused technocrats on the committees and members of the political opposition each to see the other as instrumental in corrupting if not sabotaging reentry and reconstruction activities. These attitudes continued to poison relations between the two groups during and after the 1992 election campaign.
The second example is the infamous atrocity story told by a young woman to a U.S. congressional committee, that she had seen Iraqi soldiers dumping premature infants from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals. Her testimony was presented in November 1990, after Hill & Knowlton had been hired to orchestrate public relations activities formerly coordinated by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. It was contradicted by hospital personnel in Kuwait at the time, and by human rights workers investigating war crimes charges following liberation. The witness was completely discredited when it was discovered both that she was a member of the ruling family—the daughter of Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States, Shaikh Sa`ud al-Nasir al-Sabah—and that she is unlikely to have been present where the atrocities she alleged were said to have occurred. 19 Her exposure damaged the Kuwaiti cause, angering people who felt they had been duped by her testimony and casting doubt on the veracity of genuine witnesses to actual war crimes committed by Iraqis against residents of Kuwait. In contrast, the all-volunteer Free Kuwait Campaign, whose primary task was working with news media across Europe, remained untainted by accusations about manipulation throughout the occupation.
The occupation was a source of other lessons. For the insiders, these lessons at first mostly were positive. Insiders learned that it was possible to defy an autocratic regime and survive. Those who engaged actively in life under occupation learned how much they were capable of enduring and overcoming. Even though armed resistance was effectively halted after three months, other resistance activities continued until liberation. Strategies changed to meet changing circumstances. People took new “jobs” if they were prevented from continuing with their old ones. They did unglamorous work that they never did before or hadn’t done for years, even dirty work like garbage collection and personal care of the ill and infirm. Families organized transnationally to protect those living inside, bringing in things that they needed and sometimes taking out individuals, such as the pregnant sister of Mohammad al-Muhanna (see note 60), whom they feared would not survive in occupied Kuwait. Neighbor looked out for neighbor. One result of these experiences is that most insiders are less intimidated by their government than they were in the past. As so many of them put it, “We aren’t afraid of the Sabah. We survived Saddam Hussein.”
As time passed, however, the insiders’ feelings underwent a dramatic shift. Their exhilaration at having survived a horrible ordeal gave way to feelings of despair at the social and political chaos that continues to characterize postwar Kuwait. Insider pride at having coped so well has been undermined by the political dominance of the exiles and their myths of rescue. The exiles are seen by insiders as financially better off, having been supported while abroad and financially compensated after their return. Exile children are less likely to suffer the nightmares and behavior problems that are regular experiences in some insider households. Exiles were able to go on with their lives, to continue their educations, to work at “real jobs,” and to be the focus of media attention—all the things that `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan meant when he said that it was “fascinating” to be outside. Compared to exiles, insiders were exhausted—emotionally, professionally, and physically. They found it harder to reassemble lives which had fallen apart in consequence of the invasion. Although it is true that most insiders aren’t afraid of their government, few of them are as confident as outsiders that political life in Kuwait will change for the better in their lifetimes.
The exiles who reacted energetically to the occupation are more varied as a group. Their experiences differed more widely as compared to Kuwaitis who remained inside, depending on where they were and what they chose to do. After liberation, activist exiles were less inclined than insiders to interpret the occupation as proof that normal people can resist a dictator. Even so, they look back with pride at the occupation as a time when they rose above their private desires to devote their lives to regaining their country. Such activists probably always were competent and confident, endowed with the social, intellectual, and financial resources to succeed. The occupation gave them the added assurance of having been tried and found worthy.
A few exile activists became relatively detached from Kuwait, not only as compared to insiders but also as compared to their preinvasion selves. Disgusted by the rapid return of “business as usual” following liberation—martial law, death squads, the devaluation of the Resistance and the consequent aggravation of the suffering of the population—they expressed an alienation as profound as the despair of some insiders. Exiles once, they are not afraid to contemplate leaving a second time. As it was for the pearl merchants who took their boats to Bahrain when Mubarak’s taxes became too onerous, the possibility of exit remains an item in their strategic repertoires. In 1990 many Kuwaitis remarked to me that it was impossible to be a Kuwaiti outside Kuwait. After liberation, several alienated exiles turned that statement around: it is impossible to have Kuwait without Kuwaitis. A number already have left the country. In contrast, despairing insiders rarely talk about life outside Kuwait.
By far the vast majority of Kuwaitis don’t fit any of these general descriptions. These persons include most who were children, dependent women, and infirm elderly during that time. They also include the men who sat out the occupation, whether in basements in Kuwait or in five-star hotels in London and Cairo. For the most part, these people never were prominent in the networks of relationships that compose the public spaces of Kuwaiti society, politics, and the economy. Their lives continue to be lived primarily in the private spaces of home and family and in the sheltered spaces of government sinecures. During the war in Vietnam, Vietnamese counterparts of these Kuwaitis were called attentistes, those who watched to see which way the wind was blowing before they committed themselves to one side or the other. Kuwaiti politicians describe Kuwaiti attentistes using a term from the Nixon presidency, calling them Kuwait’s “silent majority.” The assumption carried by either name is that these Kuwaitis are fundamentally risk-averse and support the status quo.
As the Iraqi invasion recedes further into the past, its contributions to Kuwaiti national myths are assimilated to impressions left by the Ikhwan invasion of 1920. In both cases, activists who escaped the horrors of the battlefield seem to have come away with the most empowering sense of their Kuwaiti identity. The town-dwellers could sleep without hearing the rattle of blowing fingernails; exiles sleep without hearing the screams of the tortured or seeing the mutilated bodies of friends and relations. The exiles also appear to have won the battle of interpreting the occupation. Armed with their self-confidence and political prominence, exiles have dominated postwar struggles to define the politics and economics of liberated Kuwait.
Endnotes
Note 1: Good summaries of the diplomatic events leading up to the invasion can be found in Elaine Sciolino, The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein’s Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis, 177&-;208; and Jean Edward Smith, George Bush’s War, 46–62. Sciolino notes that the Israelis were virtually alone in expecting some kind of military action by Iraq in the late spring of 1990, though even they were not convinced this would be directed against Kuwait. Both authors blame the United States for “allowing” Saddam to think that he could take over Kuwait and get away with it although, if it is true that no one actually believed that Saddam would do this, their condemnation of the United States seems, at best, overdrawn. Back.
Note 2: Information about Kuwaiti opinions during this period comes from extensive interviews of Kuwaitis conducted January-May 1990 in Kuwait and in London. “Overproduction” refers to production in excess of Kuwait’s OPEC-set quota—at that time, 1.5 million barrels per day (MBD). Back.
Note 3: I first encountered this vast disjunction between the evaluations of insiders and outsiders of Kuwait’s economic policies during my 1990 fieldwork in Kuwait and in Europe for a study of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Back.
Note 4: This increasing control included the absorption of private-sector oil industry investments—see Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, ch. 5. Back.
Note 5: Interview with `Abdullah Nibari, March 25, 1990, in Kuwait. `Abdullah Nibari was a leader of the opposition in the 1971 parliament, where he spearheaded the challenges to government oil policy. In this interview he also discussed the Kuwaiti parliament’s role in changing OPEC’s oil-expensing agreement in the mid-1960s, which he nominated as the first instance of public discussion of oil policy in Kuwait, and ongoing parliamentary criticisms of natural gas exploitation. Back.
Note 7: Interviews in Kuwait, spring 1990. These issues are discussed more fully in subsequent chapters. Back.
Note 8: `Ali al-Khalifa started out in what was then the Ministry of Finance and Oil shortly after receiving a master’s degree in economics from London University. He rose to the rank of assistant undersecretary of petroleum affairs before becoming undersecretary of the newly separated Ministry of Finance in 1975. He served as minister of finance and chair of the National Investment Authority after `Abd al-Latif al-Hamad resigned in 1983 due to a conflict over how to deal with the crash of the Suq al-Manakh. `Ali al-Khalifa held on to both positions until a new cabinet was formed following the 1985 election. His decisions during that period led to many of the charges by his political opponents of cronyism and corruption that continue to haunt him today. `Ali al-Khalifa headed the oil ministry in its various incarnations from 1978 to 1990, and was the chair of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation from its founding in 1980 until mid-1990, when he was moved from Oil to Finance in June, after the Majlis al-Watani election. He remained in that position until the first postliberation government was formed in 1991. See Alan Rush, Al-Sabah, 134; Economist Intelligence Unit, “Kuwait: Country Report” (various issues); Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Back.
Note 9: In 1990 interviews, Jasim al-Sa`doun, members of the Group of Thirty-two, and `Abdullah Nibari were highly critical, along with most academic economists at Kuwait University. Representatives of the press, former minister of oil and finance `Abd al-Rahman al-Atiqi, and private-sector investor Fawzi Mossad al-Saleh, among others, were highly laudatory. Back.
Note 10: Jasim al-Sa`doun interview, March 11, 1990, in Kuwait. `Ali al-Khalifa is a Sabah, but not one able to aspire to the leadership of Kuwait because he is not a direct descendent of the amir Mubarak. Back.
Note 11: This attitude persisted well into 1992 when I interviewed him in Kuwait the day before the October election. Back.
Note 12: MEES is the Middle East Economic Survey, an influential oil industry weekly published in Nicosia, Cyprus. Back.
Note 13: Interviews with Kuwaitis working at Kuwait’s embassy in Washington, D.C., conducted in August 1990, and with non-Kuwaiti employees of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, conducted in California in September 1990, elicited variations of the Iraqi version from all but one interviewee—a former Kuwaiti diplomat. Back.
Note 14: Mohammed al-Mashat, Iraqi ambassador to the United States, quoted in Smith, George Bush’s War, 22. Back.
Note 15: Ibid., also 60–61. Back.
Note 16: Smith is convinced that this is because the Kuwaitis had assurances of U.S. military assistance should Saddam actually invade (see ibid., 51ff.). Back.
Note 17: For example, see the Washington Post, March 8, 1991, 1. But Elaine Sciolino reports that the Kuwaiti government was suspicious that the “United States was exaggerating the threat as a pretext for increasing its military presence in the Gulf” (The Outlaw State, 208). Back.
Note 18: Milton Viorst, “After the Liberation,” The New Yorker, September 30, 1991, 40. Back.
Note 19: Smith, George Bush’s War, 51. Back.
Note 20: Personal communication from Ghanim al-Najjar. Mubarak’s attempts to defuse the crisis are noted in Sciolino, The Outlaw State, 207, and Smith, George Bush’s War, 22–23. Back.
Note 21: Interview with Khaled Buhamrah, then deputy managing director (M) of KNPC, March 2, 1992, at Mina’ al-Ahmadi. Back.
Note 22: Smith, George Bush’s War, 51. Back.
Note 23: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis, then-superintendent of the Kuwait Oil Company’s well-capping and fire-fighting unit, October 3, 1992, in Ahmadi. Back.
Note 24: Robin Allen, “Armed Forces: Trip-wire Role,” Financial Times, May 23, 1995, “Survey of Kuwait,” 7. Back.
Note 25: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis, October 3, 1992. Back.
Note 26: Interview in September 1990, in Alhambra, California. Back.
Note 27: Personal communication from Ghanim al-Najjar. Back.
Note 29: This trickle moved in both directions across the border (see later this chapter). Back.
Note 30: Milton Viorst, Sandcastles: The Arabs in Search of the Modern World, 257. Back.
Note 31: The stories of some of these men are recounted in Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, ch. 6. Back.
Note 32: For the officially fostered family romance in preinvasion Kuwait (i.e., the concept of al-`usra al-waheda), see chapter 3, this volume. For the views of an insider who held onto the idealistic story of the killing of Shaikh Fahad, see Rajab, Invasion Kuwait, 5–6. Back.
Note 33: This is because bedrock constituencies of the regime, the Shi`a and tribal bedouins, were underrepresented among exiled activists. The Shi`a, including opponents as well as supporters of the regime, remained in Kuwait in large numbers, many for personal reasons but some as the result of having been denied entry into Saudi Arabia as refugees because of their religion. Bedouin refugees living in hotels and apartment blocks in neighboring countries had little political influence during this period because they lacked the tribal organization that coordinates them into a formidable force in domestic politics during normal times. Back.
Note 34: These included Arab intellectuals and mass publics—“the street” in the vernacular of Middle East politics—and influential intellectuals as well as mass publics in the coalition countries. Back.
Note 35: `Ali al-Khalifa spent much of this time in London, rallying employees of KPC who streamed into the corporate headquarters of Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI), a KPC holding company. He arranged almost immediately for written delegations of authority from the amir to a handful of Kuwaitis, including KPI president Nader Sultan, empowering them to operate the oil company and manage Kuwait’s investments during the occupation. See later this chapter and also Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 133–34. Back.
Note 36: Viorst, Sandcastles, 262; Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 138. Back.
Note 37: Sciolino, The Outlaw State, 217; Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 137–38. Back.
Note 38: Sciolino, The Outlaw State, 217; interviews with Lubna Saif `Abbas `Abdulla, daughter of political scientist Saif `Abbas `Abdulla and herself a leader of the ad hoc student group working with Citizens for a Free Kuwait, September-October 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 39: Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 139. Back.
Note 42: Viorst, Sandcastles, 261. Information about the Jidda meeting comes from this source, from Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, from the Economist Intelligence Unit, “Kuwait Country Report no. 4, 1990” (London: Business International, 1990), and from interviews with Kuwaitis. Back.
Note 43: EIU, “Kuwait Country Report no. 4, 1990,” 7. Back.
Note 44: Viorst, Sandcastles, 262. Back.
Note 45: The chief elements in this discrediting included Ibrahim Shahin’s decision to eliminate all but one primary contractor, Bechtel, from postwar oil industry reconstruction, touching off a barrage of rumors about favoritism and payoffs; and the results of his insistence on personally authorizing every purchase—he too had been informed about the “corruption” of the volunteer planners—which created unnecessary shortages, including food, water, and equipment needed for the fire-fighting. Back.
Note 46: I have discussed the deleterious effects of Ibrahim Shahin’s operations on the oil well fire-fighting and other immediate problems of the postliberation period in The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 140–42. I discovered evidence of the campaign to discredit the committees in 1994, after that book went to press. Back.
Note 47: Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), “Kuwait Country Report no. 1, 1991” (London: EIU, 1991), 7–8. Back.
Note 49: Ibid., 8. However, this is not to say that the crown prince was held in high esteem or that there were not significant pockets of support favoring the amir. Back.
Note 50: No mention is made of Hamad al-Jou`an, his wife, or her speech in the official published account of this meeting, which was taped in its entirety. See National Republican Institute for International Affairs, “Political Participation and Constitutional Democracy in Kuwait,” Washington, D.C., April 29, 1991. The proceedings are marked “edited transcript of a conference.” Back.
Note 51: Viorst, “After the Liberation,” 43–44, 55; memoirs of and interviews with persons remaining in Kuwait during the occupation. The interviews were conducted in the United States, Europe, and Kuwait. Evidence of the attention paid by the Iraqis to the work of the Resistance is shown by a collection of captured Iraqi military documents compiled by Ali Abdul-Lateef Khalifiouh, PSC. See Youssef Abdul-Mo`ati, ed, Kuwaiti Resistance as Revealed by Iraqi Documents. Such documents littered the Kuwaiti landscape following the rout of Iraqi troops by the coalition forces. On a drive through the Mutla Ridge area with Saif `Abbas `Abdulla in February 1992, we found a large cache of papers that included a ledger left behind by the occupiers. Back.
Note 52: See accounts of some of the activities of KPC employees in Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 126–30. Back.
Note 53: These were Athbi al-Fahad, who served in the military, and Sabah al-Nasir and `Ali al-Salim, who were active in the civilian Resistance. (Personal communication from Ghanim al-Najjar.) Back.
Note 54: Information about the operation of this system comes mainly from interviews with Kuwaiti businessmen `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan and `Abd al-`Aziz Sultan, both of whom remained in Kuwait during the occupation. These interviews were conducted in September 1992 and March 1994, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 55: Cooperative societies, which continue to be important Kuwaiti economic institutions, also are incubators of democracy. They are based in neighborhoods, and all Kuwaitis who are at least eighteen years old are eligible to subscribe. Members receive a share of their cooperative’s annual profits and may both vote and run for election to the cooperative’s board. See Neil Hicks and Ghanim al-Najjar, “The Utility of Tradition: Civil Society in Kuwait,” in Augustus Richard Norton, ed., Civil Society in the Middle East, 199–200 (New York: E. J. Brill, 1995). Back.
Note 56: Hicks and al-Najjar, “The Utility of Tradition,” 201. Back.
Note 57: Interview with `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan, October 19, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 58: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis. Back.
Note 59: Personal communication from Ghanim al-Najjar. Back.
Note 61: Interview with `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan, September 21, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 62: Interview with Ghanim al-Najjar, May 23, 1999, in Cambridge, Mass. Back.
Note 63: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis, October 6, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 64: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis. Back.
Note 65: Interview with Kuwaiti attorney Saleh al-Hashem, candidate for parliament in 1992, September 29, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 66: Interview with Dr. Mohammad al-Muhanna, director of animal health, Kuwait Agricultural Authority, October 2, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 67: Interview with Ghanim al-Najjar, May 23, 1999. Back.
Note 68: Personal communication. Back.
Note 69: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis. Back.
Note 70: This is a constant refrain in occupation “diaries” such as Jadranka Porter’s Under Siege in Kuwait: A Survivor’s Story, Don Latham’s Occupation Diary, and Julie D. Sharples’s “Diary” (unpublished manuscript, 1992). Back.
Note 71: Interview with Eqbal al-Rahmani, September 23, 1992, in Kuwait. Even though the numbers were exaggerated, however, rapes did occur. Following liberation, careful estimates of the number of Kuwaiti women raped by Iraqis were compiled from a wide variety of data sources. On that basis, researchers concluded that about two thousand Kuwaitis had been raped. See Haya al-Mughni and Fawzia al-Turkait, “Dealing with Trauma: Cultural Barriers to Self-Recovery—The Case of Kuwaiti Women,” paper presented at the Seminar on Effective Methods for Encountering the Psychological and Social Effects of the Iraqi Aggression, sponsored by the Social Development Office of the Amiri Diwan, Kuwait, March 1994; also, Mary Ann Tétreault, “Justice for All: Wartime Rape and Women’s Human Rights,” Global Governance 3 (1997): 197–212. The inhibitions on raping Arab women, which helped to keep the number of rapes of Kuwaiti women relatively low, did not hold for non-Arab women, who were reported to have been raped in much larger numbers, absolutely and relative to their proportion among the Kuwaiti population. Back.
Note 72: When stories about atrocities are told by insiders, their quality is different. Artist Lidia Qattan told me several stories about executions in her neighborhood, Qadisiya, where Iraqi military officers were concentrated. Lidia’s status as an insider infuses her stories with a knowledge that goes beyond the fact of the executions to the persistence and strategies of survivors. Even without being put into words, the survival of Lidia, her artist husband Khalifa, and their house filled with years’ worth of paintings, mosaics, and sculptures is a story of persistence and inner strength. Back.
Note 73: Interviews in Kuwait, October 1992. Back.
Note 74: Interview in Kuwait, September 1992. Back.
Note 75: See Mary Ann Tétreault, “Whose Honor? Whose Liberation? Women and the Reconstruction of Politics in Kuwait,” in Tétreault, ed., Women and Revolution in Africa, Asia, and the New World, 300–301. Back.
Note 76: According to insiders, most of the money was exchanged through regular channels and at prevailing rates—nothing “favorable.” `Ali al-Salim al-Sabah, acting for the ruling family, would give merchants receipts for goods taken by Iraqis and distributed through cooperatives. The merchants also received receipts for the cash they distributed among the population. “The merchants gave goods to the cooperatives and the cooperatives gave the merchants money. The merchants gave the money to the people and the people [spent] the money at the cooperatives. It was a circle.” Receipts for these various transfers could be “cashed” outside Kuwait. (Interview with `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan, September 21, 1992, in Kuwait, and personal communication from Ghanim al-Najjar. The quote is from the interview.) Back.
Note 77: For example, Jadranka Porter, in Under Siege in Kuwait, tells of the heroism of `Abd al-`Aziz Sultan, a favored subject of “businessman as occupation entrepreneur” stories. Back.
Note 78: Hicks and al-Najjar, “The Utility of Tradition,” 200. Back.
Note 79: Shamlan Y. al-Essa, “The Political Consequences of the Crisis for Kuwait,” 169–85. Back.
Note 80: Interviews in Kuwait, September-October 1992. Back.
Note 81: Hicks and al-Najjar, “The Utility of Tradition,” 200. Back.
Note 82: Interview with `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan. Back.
Note 83: Interview with a Kuwait University professor, September 19, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 84: Interview in Kuwait, October 11, 1992. This man remained concealed in Kuwait with his family until December 1990. Back.
Note 85: Interview with Lubna Saif `Abbas `Abdulla, September 17, 1992, in Kuwait. Lubna, a graduate of American University in Washington, was one of nine Kuwaiti women trained at Fort Dix to participate in the military phase of the liberation. Back.
Note 86: Interview with `Eisa bu Yabis. Back.
Note 87: Interview with Muna al-Mousa, member of the staff of KPI’s public relations department and a volunteer with the Free Kuwait Campaign, March 8, 1991, in London. Back.
Note 88: Interview with Khaled Buhamrah, then deputy managing director of KNPC (Kuwait National Petroleum Company), a subsidiary of KPC,, September 27, 1992, at Mina’ al-Ahmadi. Back.
Note 89: Interview with `Abd al-Wahhab al-Wazzan. Back.
Note 90: Interview with Khaled Sultan, businessman and candidate for parliament, September 30, 1992, in Kuwait. Back.
Note 91: Tétreault, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, 141–42. Back.
Note 92: PBS, “Frontline: The Gulf War,” January 9, 1996. Back.
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