The Washington Post, by Caryle Murphy

Talks to Defuse Crisis Start Today in Jeddah

Iraq has concentrated nearly 100,000 troops close to the Kuwaiti border that could be used against this small Persian Gulf emirate, more than triple the 30,000 reported a week ago, according to a Western diplomat here.

The considerably higher estimate of about six army divisions is based on recent, more complete information and represents the total force now believed positioned for use by Baghdad in its war of nerves with its southern neighbor, one source said.

In Washington, an administration official said that up to 100,000 Iraqi troops are now maneuvering in southern Iraq and "within that deployment a greater concentration is moving into the border area." A Pentagon source said the Iraqi force is drawn partly from the 3rd and 7th army corps stationed near Basra, about 40 miles north of the Kuwaiti border. The earlier estimate of 30,000 focused on an initial deployment of Republican Guard troops that were moved to the border area more than a week ago.

An Arab diplomat in Washington said his government had raised its estimate of the Iraqi force threatening Kuwait, but he put the total at 80,000 to 85,000. He said Iraq had moved additional troops from four other divisions last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The revised assessment of the Iraqi deployment -- which is said by the Western diplomat in Kuwait to include 300 tanks, 300 heavy artillery pieces and bridging equipment -- emerged as Kuwait and Iraq agreed to meet Tuesday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to resolve the two-week-old crisis.

Diplomats here said the significantly larger Iraqi force figures have not caused them to change their views that Iraq's goal is intimidation of Kuwait, rather than an imminent invasion. In all, the Iraqi deployment is five times as large as Kuwait's total armed forces.

However, they said they still do not rule out the possibility that if Kuwait does not move fast enough in the negotiations to meet Iraq's financial and territorial claims, Baghdad might grab parts of the disputed border areas.

"The Kuwaitis don't think Iraq will storm over the border, but they still don't want to provoke them," one European diplomat said.

A continuing military buildup would be characteristic of the tough negotiating style of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who set off the current crisis by accusing Kuwait of conspiring with the United States to sabotage Iraq's economy by driving down world oil prices.

One Western source said the 100,000 troops are situated between Basra and forward positions about 10 miles from the Kuwaiti border.

Saddam told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that all the troops in his border area were "present before" the latest crisis and that he had no intention of moving them "toward Kuwait," Mubarak said last week.

The Iraqi troops cannot be seen from Kuwait's border post, but the closest ones could reach Kuwait City, the capital of this desert land, in about 90 minutes over a well-paved highway.

Iraq, slightly larger than California, has a population of about 17 million, compared to 2 million in Kuwait, which is the size of New Jersey.

The Jeddah talks will be hosted by Saudi King Fahd and are the result of intense mediation by a number of Arab leaders who have streamed into Kuwait and Baghdad seeking to ease the crisis.

Western diplomats and some Kuwaitis express pessimism that the talks, whose agenda and duration are not known, will quickly resolve the bitter dispute, which includes long-running Iraqi claims on parts of Kuwaiti territory.

Their pessimism, these sources say, stems from the harsh language Iraqi officials have been using both publicly and privately against Kuwait and its leaders, as well as Baghdad's apparent intention, backed up by the military deployment, to get its way.

In a meeting in Baghdad last week with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam predicted that "nothing will happen" during the mediation efforts.

"The Iraqis are pressuring too much," said Abdullah Anafisi, a former member of Kuwait's parliament. "They are trying to humiliate Kuwait, and this we cannot swallow."

Iraq's maximum demands at Jeddah, diplomats said, could include up to $ 10 billion in aid; $ 2.4 billion for allegedly stolen oil; cancellation of $ 10 billion in debts incurred during the eight-year Persian Gulf war; renunciation of Kuwaiti claims to the disputed Rumaila oil field, which extends beneath both countries; and acquisition of a long-term lease on Kuwait's strategic Bubiyan island.

Saddam contends Iraq is entitled to these concessions because it defended Kuwait against Iran's revolutionary Shiite Moslem regime during the gulf war.

Kuwait's leadership apparently is prepared to pay Iraq a large sum of money and may even acquiesce in Iraq's claims over the Rumaila oil field, diplomats here said. But the royal family is seemingly determined not to yield to demands to give up or lease Bubiyan to Iraq, diplomats and Kuwaitis said.

Iraq has long coveted Bubiyan, an island of about 225 square miles just off Kuwait's northeast coast, because it commands access to Iraq's main port at Umm Qasr and could pose a military threat in unfriendly hands.

Staff writers Nora Boustany and Patrick E. Tyler, in Washington, contributed to this report.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

Tanks, Troops Storm Capital

Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait this morning, driving deep into the country and seizing parts of the capital of this Persian Gulf emirate.

"It is fairly safe to say that Kuwait city is overrun," a White House official said in Washington early this morning.

Heavy machine-gun and mortar fire could be heard through the morning around the palace of the ruling emir, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah. Within hours of the invasion, Iraq's ruling council declared that its troops had acted to support Kuwaiti revolutionaries who had conducted a coup against Sabah's government, news agencies reported from Baghdad.

Amid fighting in the city this morning, Kuwaiti radio interrupted a program of military music, declaring: "Citizens, your country is being subjected to a barbaric invasion. . . . It is time to defend it."

A huge column of black smoke, hundreds of feet high, could be seen above the city water towers that dominate the capital's skyline and stand across the street from the emir's palace. Kuwaitis reported that at least two government ministries -- those of information and internal affairs -- had been seized by Iraqi troops. News agencies reported Iraqi seizures of other key sites.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said the Iraqi troops were "pushing pretty hard, going far in," he said. He said the invasion was "not just a border thing."

Just before midnight, the White House issued a statement saying, "The United States strongly condemns the Iraqi military invasion of Kuwait and calls for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces." The White House later added, "The United States is reviewing all its options in response to this Iraqi aggression." Officials said there are about 3,800 Americans in the country, including 270 government employees and their dependents.

The statement said the United Nations Security Council would meet this morning to review the situation.

The Associated Press quoted Western diplomats as saying that large numbers of Iraqi tanks had rumbled into the city.

Kuwaiti state radio said the invasion began at about 2 a.m. local time, less than 24 hours after the two countries had broken off talks aimed at defusing the crisis in their relations caused by Iraqi demands for territorial and financial concessions.

The scene in Kuwait city was chaotic. A series of explosions, lasting almost an hour, could be heard shortly after dawn. They appeared to be coming from north of the city. The Iraqi border is about 50 miles north of the city.

The area near the U.S. Embassy and the emir's palace was sealed by armed police, and sporadic gunfire could be heard on the streets in the area of the palace early this morning. One Western diplomat reported that the shooting appeared to be between Kuwaiti and Iraqi forces.

In Washington, Kuwaiti Ambassador Saud Nasir Sabah, a member of the royal family, said Iraqi forces "have penetrated very deep into the city. There is a sense of panic and desperate attempts to stop them."

Sabah said the Iraqi invaders were supported by helicopter gunships and aircraft. He said he had no information about the whereabouts or safety of the ruling emir.

A Western diplomat here said he had been told the Iraqis had taken all border posts between Abdaly, where the main highway to Basra crosses the frontier, and Umm Qasr, on the Persian Gulf.

The Associated Press reported from Kuwait that an unidentified ship had tried to approach the emir's seaside palace and that palace guards had opened fire. AP also said that formations of Kuwaiti air force Mirage fighter jets had flown north toward the border. A Western diplomat told the Post that one aircraft reportedly had been shot down. Kuwaiti army tanks and armored personnel carriers were maneuvering south of the royal palace and appeared to be trying to establish new defensive positions.

White House deputy press spokesman Steve Hart said the United States had conveyed its condemnation of the invasion "to the Iraqi ambassador in Washington and to the Iraqi government through our embassy in Baghdad. We deplore this blatant use of military aggression and violation of the United Nations charter."

Pentagon officials said they were monitoring the invasion through intelligence sources, but several officials said there were no plans for a U.S. military response to the invasion, staff correspondent Patrick E. Tyler reported. "We have not gotten any new requests from our allies," said one official, adding, "I don't know what we would do."

One Pentagon official said the Iraqi troops "started to move" during the day Wednesday in a massive formation close to the border and by the end of the afternoon, some Pentagon officials were predicting that an Iraqi invasion was inevitable. "There is general befuddlement about what to do in any case," said one Middle East specialist in the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney was at home monitoring the Iraqi action by telephone. An aide said he was not expected to return to the Pentagon during the night. "There is no decision for him to make," an aide said, adding, "This ain't our show."

Since the Iraqi troop build-up on Kuwait's border was first reported, U.S. officials have sought to hedge their statements about the U.S. commitment to security threats to Kuwait. U.S. officials have estimated that Iraq had massed as many as 100,000 troops and 300 tanks on the border.

On July 24, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams reiterated an earlier statement by Cheney, who said: "We would, in fact, take very seriously any threat to U.S. interests or U.S. friends in the region. We've demonstrated in recent years that we in fact have the capability to . . . do something about it." But State Department officials have equally emphasized that the United States has no defense treaty with Kuwait and traditionally has avoided taking sides in the region.

U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf consist of six warships, which have been on alert since the first Iraqi troop movements were detected more than a week ago. The Joint Task Force Middle East, under the command of Rear Admiral William M. Fogarty, consists of four frigates, a destroyer and the command ship, USS LaSalle. The U.S. battle group last week began conducting "short notice" maneuvers with aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, in what U.S. officials said was a signal to the Iraqis that U.S. reaction to any aggression would be unpredictable.

At the same time, senior Bush administration officials specifically declined to escalate their military response by deploying more forces to the region as they had done in 1987 when spillover from the Iran-Iraq war was threatening commercial shipping and the security of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Nearby U.S. forces include an aircraft carrier battle group centered around the USS Independence in the Indian Ocean.

In the Soviet city of Irkutsk, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, speaking after talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said he had asked Shevardnadze "to halt any Soviet military or arms deliveries that might be in the pipeline for Iraq," correspondent Al Kamen reported.

Asked about Shevardnadze's reaction to the Iraqi move, Baker said: "I really shouldn't react for him, but he was not pleased to hear that Iraqi forces had moved into Kuwait, and I think he shares our concern."

Iraq had positioned nearly 100,000 troops and 300 tanks near its border with the neighboring Persian Gulf emirate.

Kuwait, said to be willing to compromise over some of Iraq's financial claims but adamant over not ceding territory, appeared to be trying to call what it had hoped was Iraq's bluff over the implicit threat of military action, diplomats and Kuwaitis here said. Those hopes were dashed this morning.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose regional influence was recently enhanced when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries went along with an Iraqi demand to raise the target price of oil, clearly intends to keep pushing Kuwait to the utmost to meet his demands.

Iraq's military move poses a major dilemma for the United States, which has longstanding ties with Kuwait, but is wary of taking sides against Saddam. His hard-line stance against Israel has made him a popular figure in Arab circles, and a U.S. military confrontation with him would likely boost that popularity.

According to one Kuwaiti source, the Iraqi delegation, headed by Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, demanded at the first meeting on Tuesday that Kuwait accept, without discussion, Baghdad's demands for expanded territory and oil-pumping rights, as well as more than $ 10 billion in financial settlements, without discussion.

When Kuwait's crown prince and prime minister, Sheik Saad Abdullah Sabah, insisted on negotiations to reach a compromise, the Iraqis said they would give the Kuwaitis a night to think things over, this source said.

This version could not be confirmed, but Deputy Prime Minister Saadoun Hammadi, a member of Iraq's delegation, Wednesday blamed Kuwait for the breakdown. "No agreement has been achieved on anything because we did not feel from the Kuwaitis any seriousness in dealing with the severe damage inflicted on Iraq as a result of their recent behavior and stands against Iraq's basic interests," Hammadi said.

Saad, meanwhile, called the Jiddah talks "candid," adding that he "listened with all due interest to the vice chairman's viewpoints, and explained Kuwait's stand, based on patriotic responsibility and national commitment toward all questions."

Hammadi said future talks "will be held in Baghdad," but Kuwait, beyond saying it would resume discussions, has not commented on where they would be held. Kuwait prefers a neutral site.

In its confrontation with Iraq, Kuwait's ruling Sabah family appears to be fighting a lonely battle. Although Kuwait has long had an outspoken press and parliament, both of these forums for public opinion have in recent years been silenced as the result of a political dispute between the Sabahs and domestic critics seeking more democracy.

Censorship has kept the harsh Iraqi attacks out of the local press and parliament has been suspended since 1986. As a result, there has been little public debate over the crisis that might galvanize support for the government, critics said. "This all wouldn't be happening if we had a free press and a parliament," one activist said. "We are hearing some of the Iraqi demands for the first time."

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

U.S. Bans Trade, Joins Allies in Freezing Assets; Ruler Flees Country; Casualties Reported

A massive Iraqi invasion force stormed through this small Persian Gulf emirate today, driving out the government and taking control of the capital after meeting surprisingly stiff initial resistance from outnumbered Kuwaiti troops.

The Iraqi troops, who crossed the border at 2 a.m., quickly secured control of several key government ministries and spread their tanks and armored vehicles throughout the city. But they had to wage tough battles at several points during the day.

Reports from diplomatic sources late today said at least 200 Kuwaitis had been killed in the fighting. Other diplomats said it was impossible to get a firm figure, but they expected the total to be high. There were no reports of any casualties among the nearly 4,000 Americans living here or among guests in the capital's luxury hotels, some of which are in the areas where fighting was heavy early in the day.

Iraqi soldiers rounded up and moved eight American oil field workers from their work places near the border of Kuwait and their whereabouts are unknown, an unidentified State Department official in Washington told the Associated Press.

By nightfall, there was still sporadic fighting in some neighborhoods, and while Iraqi forces appeared to have consolidated control through much of the city, it remained unclear exactly how firm that control was.

Iraq warned other countries not to come to Kuwait's assistance, saying in a statement broadcast on Baghdad Radio that its armed forces "will make Iraq and Kuwait a graveyard for those who launch any aggression." In Baghdad, motorists honked their horns and flashed their lights as Iraqis celebrated the news that their troops had invaded Kuwait, Reuters reported.

Kuwait's ruling emir, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah, fled to Saudi Arabia as the invasion was beginning, but his younger brother Fahd reportedly was killed defending the emir's palace, where some of the heaviest fighting took place.

Iraqi-controlled radio stations announced several hours after the invasion began that a new provisional government -- of Kuwaiti revolutionaries opposed to the ruling Sabah family -- had taken power. But continued calls to resist came from Kuwait television, which several Kuwaitis said was broadcasting from Saudi Arabia.

"Let them taste the chalice of death," Kuwaiti Crown Prince Saad Abdullah Sabah said in a broadcast.

The Iraqi invasion marked a brutal climax to what began as a quarrel between the two countries over oil money. Iraq's President Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait last month of violating OPEC oil-production quotas and stealing oil from a field shared by the two countries. When Kuwait refused to submit to Iraqi demands, Saddam sent troops to the border -- an initial strike force of 30,000 that grew to at least 100,000 by last weekend.

The invasion was widely seen by diplomats and Kuwaitis as an attempt by Saddam to gain control of Kuwait's oil wealth and install a compliant government that would respond favorably to his financial and territorial claims against Kuwait.

A more immediate prize for the Iraqi invaders was custody of 15 prisoners held by Kuwait since a December 1983 bomb attack on the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait city that killed five people and injured more than 80. According to one Arab source, the Iraqis seized the 15 prisoners today and immediately transferred them to Baghdad.

Washington is extremely concerned with the fate of the prisoners because their situation and that of six Americans held hostage in Lebanon are closely linked. The hostages' Shiite Moslem captors have demanded that the prisoners in Kuwait be released before any of the Americans can be set free. Kuwaiti officials have steadfastly refused, saying that convicted saboteurs should not be equated with innocent hostages. How that stalemate might change with the prisoners' transfer to Baghdad was unclear today.

Western diplomats here reported that Iraqi troops were making their way to the southern part of Kuwait, and one said they appeared intent on going all the way to the Saudi border. Most of Kuwait's rich oil fields are in the south.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that Iraq closed its land borders today and revoked permission for its citizens to travel abroad. It also called up military reserves, reinforcing its 1-million-strong armed forces, the BBC said.

From an early morning overflight of Iraqi jets at 5:30, which alerted the city to the imminent attack, until late in the day, the boom of artillery shells and rapid fire of machine guns filled the air.

Some of the fiercest fighting occurred outside the emir's residence, Dasman Palace. It began about 6 a.m. and lasted until about 2 p.m., with an extremely intense 1 1/2-hour period around noon.

Diplomats and Kuwaitis also reported intense, prolonged fighting in the suburbs of Jahra and Riggae, where Kuwaiti military facilities are located.

The Al Shaab palace of the crown prince was burning late today, according to people living nearby.

The invading forces did not directly attack or seal off any embassies, although the British Embassy was affected by the fighting around Dasman Palace, which is only one block away.

The Iraqis, and the still-unknown new government they claim has overthrown the emir, announced a curfew early this afternoon.

As night fell today, tension and uncertainty settled on the city. "The situation is still very critical," one Kuwaiti said. This mood was heightened by the confusion created by conflicting statements about who was in control.

A communique broadcast simultaneously on Iraqi radio and television, and on a Kuwait radio station at about 1:45 p.m. claimed that a new "temporary and free" government had been established after the overthrow of the emir.

The communique accused the Sabah family -- descendents of a dynasty that has ruled Kuwait for 234 years -- of corruption and of violating Kuwaiti peoples' rights. It said it was "dismissing" the emir and the crown prince, who is also the prime minister, and would eventually "organize free, honest elections."

Iraqi forces, the communique said, had been invited into Kuwait to facilitate this transfer of power.

Kuwaitis who heard the broadcast said the communique was read by three different speakers, whose accents identified them as a Syrian and two Iraqis. They said the communique was aired on a different frequency from that used by Kuwait's radio station, suggesting that it was broadcast by a facility brought in by Iraqi troops.

Many Kuwaitis expressed ignorance of who might be cooperating with the Iraqis. Some speculated that they might come from among a section of Kuwait's population that has been denied citizenship because their fathers or grandfathers, although born in this country, were not able to prove it. They have been denied many of the financial benefits and access to top positions given Kuwaiti citizens.

This group, known as Bidoon, has been critical of the emir's rule, but diplomats said they were unaware of any feelings strong enough to prompt them to overthrow the emir by force. Kuwaitis said, however, that these people make up a large portion of Kuwait's military and security forces.

By late tonight, no Kuwaitis had come forward claiming to be part of the new government, eliciting skepticism among residents here that it actually exists.

"It's an excuse," said one Kuwaiti government worker. "I'm sure they are making an excuse for their intervention to give to their people."

"I cannot confirm such a government exists," a Western diplomat said. "It's clear the Iraqis claim it exists, but nobody has come forward and said, 'Here I am. I'm head of the new government.' "

Meanwhile, the channel that usually carries Kuwait TV displayed a picture of the emir and crown prince for most of the day, accompanied by a commentary saying they were the legitimate government and condemning foreign forces in Kuwait.

Some Kuwaitis said they believed the broadcast was coming from outside the country, since the national television station is in the Information Ministry, which was occupied by Iraqi troops early in the day.

The U.S. Embassy contacted most of the estimated 3,800 Americans in Kuwait today, telling them to be ready with their passports in case Washington decides to evacuate its citizens. That seemed an impossibility for most of today, as gunfire kept most people off the streets. Kuwait's international airport was said to be closed, having been bombed earlier by Iraqi jets.

In addition to the Information Ministry, Kuwaiti sources said that the Interior and Foreign ministries had been captured early in the invasion.

The invasion came less than 24 hours after talks between Iraq and Kuwait in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, collapsed Wednesday morning. Their abrupt end came after Iraq reportedly demanded that Kuwait accept, without further discussion, Baghdad's financial and territorial claims.

While Kuwaiti diplomats in Washington and elsewhere appealed for military help Kuwaiti voices in this area, using a maritime radio frequency, sought help from the "Arab world and the international community."

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

This report was filed last week before telephone communications with Kuwait were cut.

On Tuesday, two days before Iraq invaded this complacent little sheikdom, a European ambassador placed an urgent call to Kuwait's civil defense chief to discuss the safety of his expatriate flock.

Sorry, the ambassador was told, but the head of civil defense is on vacation. Could he please call back in three weeks?

That about summed up the level of official preparedness within the House of Sabah -- as the Kuwaiti royal family is known -- on the eve of the Iraqi invasion that would drive the ruling emir, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah, and other family members into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The ouster of the Sabahs, whose emirs have ruled Kuwait since 1756, came as a result of Iraqi aggression. But in the days before Iraqi troops stormed across the border early Thursday, it was clear that this emirate, for all its oil wealth, had some substantial political problems that the Sabahs and their government had not been addressing.

While Kuwait has a more open press than most Arab nations, it has quashed any real political debate since the mid-1970s and resisted a gathering movement for democracy here. Referring, before the invasion, to Kuwait's domestic politics, Muhammad Rumaihi, a sociologist and editor of Kuwait's al-Arabi magazine, said: "I believe we are in for a very hard time in front of us. It's [necessary] either to move ahead or the tide will cover you."

Kuwait's biggest problem was its inability to defend itself against its much larger and more powerful neighbors. Kuwait's small army of 20,000 obviously could not do it, but the Kuwaiti leadership was not willing to make strong military alliances with more powerful nations, like the United States, that might have deterred the Iraqis.

Kuwait's wary independence is partly explained by its history. The first emir, Sabah I, was selected by the other leading families to rule what amounted to a city-state of desert bedouins and adventurous seafarers who sailed their wooden dhows to the Far West to trade, or spent months at sea diving for pearls. Those traditions bred an independent streak and democratic spirit among the Kuwaitis that set them apart from their gulf brethren. Indeed, for much of 1980s, Kuwait was among the few Arab nations with even a semblance of democracy or free press.

The modern Sabahs tried to harness those free spirits -- and also to contain them. Four decades of dazzling oil revenues, spread among the native population of fewer than 800,000, added to the royal family's self-confidence. But to some of their poorer Arab neighbors -- and to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who came to work and settle in Kuwait -- the self-esteem of the ruling sheiks sometimes came across as arrogance.

Diplomats here said last week, before Iraq's invasion, that members of the Kuwaiti royal family had become acutely concerned about Iraqi pressure -- although, characteristically, they did not share this burden with their subjects, keeping the details of their dealings with the Iraqis from the local media.

Smaller than Switzerland, Kuwait has lived since its 1961 independence from Britain in a sort of political "Bermuda triangle," scrunched among the giants of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It has had to employ deft diplomacy, studied neutrality and sometimes large cash grants to keep from being swallowed up by its neighbors.

Then came the dispute with Iraq's cash-hungry leader Saddam Hussein, who accused wealthy Kuwait of violating production quotas of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and stealing Iraqi oil. It was "almost their worst diplomatic nightmare come true," said one Western diplomat here.

But even last week, fewer than 48 hours before the invasion, Kuwaitis didn't have any sense that they were standing on the edge of a precipice.

"I think Iraq knows that Kuwait is an independent country for a long time, and that it's not a piece of cake to be taken like that," said Mohammad Jasser, as he dropped off his children for an afternoon of skating in an indoor ice rink. The 40-year-old civil servant said he regarded the verbal thunder from Baghdad as "kind of negotiating -- you know, if you ask for 25 percent, you will get ten percent."

"Iraq also knows that Kuwait is not alone," said Jasser, his long white dishdasha, the traditional robe of gulf men, flapping against the family Mercedes in the stifling desert breeze. "Behind Kuwait is the United Kingdom and the United States."

Those back-ups weren't much help, as it turned out. But there was little sign of worry here in Kuwait city, a flat, sandy expanse of high-rise offices, expressways and colonnaded mansions set against the turquoise Persian Gulf waters.

Well-stocked shopping malls were still catering to leisurely consumers, not panicky hoarders. And after 5 in the afternoon, when the 120-degree-plus temperatures had dipped into the bearable zone, families were gathering on the local beaches for a swim.

"It's just a diplomatic problem about oil," remarked supervisor Mohammad Iskandar, 25, as he handled customer queries in the Sultan Center gourmet supermarket.

"We have experience" with the Iraqis, Iskander said, recalling how the two countries fought over their border for two weeks back in 1961. "So we can tell it's not a big deal. If anything was going to go wrong, it would have happened during the gulf war. We had five explosions in one day at that time. Now the war is over and we're relaxed."

Kuwait city had an empty air about it last week, even before the Iraqis surged across the border. But that was not because its residents had fled in fright. August is high vacation time. And Kuwaitis, whose petro-dollars have made them one of the wealthiest citizenries in the world, had not let Iraq's threats interfere with their summer habit of escaping to London or Nice for weeks on end.

Some Kuwaitis, who were visiting Iraq, came rushing home last month after Baghdad began accusing their country of economic sabotage, military aggression and "stealing" oil from a disputed reservoir on their common border. Feeling uncomfortable in Baghdad, those Kuwaitis headed south, passing the Iraqi military buildup on the way.

One of them told of stopping in a roadside shop enroute. After selecting his purchases, he handed a bill to the Iraqi shopkeeper, who stuffed it in his shirt pocket and refused to give back change. When he protested, the Kuwaiti recalled, the shopkeeper replied, "Oh no, you've been stealing our oil."

Any Kuwaiti who depended only on the local media for his news would hardly have worried about Iraq's bellicosity. None of Kuwait's several newspapers, nor the state-run radio or television, mentioned the Iraqi mobilization just a 90-minute ride from Kuwait city.

The official Kuwaiti shyness about reporting the troop presence seemed a bit futile, given that the British Broadcasting Corp., Voice of America and the Cable News Network are all easily available here. And, for a blow-by-blow version of exactly what Iraq had been angry about, all Kuwaitis had to do was tune into Iraq's nightly TV news.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

The following is an eyewitness account of events in Kuwait this week. It was received yesterday.

A week after the Iraqi invasion, there is no sign of any civil administration -- Kuwaiti or Iraqi -- in this occupied country of 1.7 million people, where residents nervously await their fate.

The real fear among Kuwaitis and Westerners here is of an attack to oust the Iraqis, or of retaliation against them if Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, is attacked.

The inhabitants of Kuwait City ignore traffic lights in the absence of policemen, but electricity and water continue to flow and, strangely, the Kuwaiti flag still flies over the ruined Dasman Palace.

People are burning their garbage in the streets. The roads are littered with the debris of warfare -- burned-out armored cars and trucks -- and with dozens of cars abandoned in panic by their owners in the early days of the occupation. Some of the vehicles have been crushed by tanks.

Kuwaiti resistance to the Iraqi occupation continues. Snipers regularly fire at Iraqi soldiers. Automatic weapons fire has been heard every night since the invasion. One member of the Kuwaiti resistance said their strategy is to stage hit-and-run attacks against Iraqi soldiers, with the aim of creating confusion.

Occasional demonstrations have been staged, many by women. And streets have been plastered with signs bearing photographs of the ousted emir and crown prince, Sheik Jabir and Sheik Saad.

Many members of the royal family and of the liberal opposition are in hiding.

People spend their days visiting friends or looking for increasingly expensive food amid confusion over the status of the once mighty Kuwaiti dinar. Banks are closed, and residents say ration cards have been introduced in some areas.

Iraqi soldiers are using Iraqi dinars to buy goods at the rate of 1-to-1 with the Kuwaiti dinar. Before the invasion, one Kuwaiti dinar was worth 10 Iraqi dinars on the black market, but shops are obliged to accept Iraqi money at the new rate.

A few electronics and jewelry shops have been plundered in the city center. But there have been only isolated instances of looting.

The annexation of Kuwait by Iraq following the invasion was hardly a surprise to people here. The interim government of Iraqi military officers took no measures of any kind and was clearly never more than a stopgap prior to Iraq's annexation of Kuwait.

Troops have settled in, apparently to stay, building shelters at their beach encampments to provide relief from the sun in temperatures approaching 90 degrees in the shade, and filling sandbags for their positions.

New government ministers have not said anything themselves. All of their statements come from Iraqi TV commentators.

So far there has been no sign of Kuwaiti collaboration or of people returning to work as requested by Iraq, and Iraq has yet to impose its fearsome internal security apparatus on Kuwait. Baath Party officials from Baghdad, however, have moved into at least one city center hotel.

Many Kuwaitis were already out of the country for their summer holidays, and others have already managed to flee to Saudi Arabia. The majority of the population are foreigners anyway, not just the few thousand Westerners implicitly threatened by Iraq but also hundreds of thousands of Arab residents and Asian migrant workers who kept the economy going.

The 40,000-strong Filipino community, for one, is in difficult straits. About 1,500 Filipinos are camped out at their embassy, which has no direct communications with Manila, and they are short of money to buy food.

Many foreigners had their savings at local banks and cannot now withdraw them. "I have 1,300 dinars in the bank," said one Egyptian hotel worker. "What will my family say when I go home -- if I go home?"

Western embassies are negotiating with Iraqi officials at the Iraqi Embassy but so far have made little headway in arranging an evacuation of their nationals. Diplomats say the real decisions will be made in Baghdad, and that talks may be complicated by the refusal of their countries to recognize Kuwait as part of Iraq.

Asian and Arab residents of Kuwait are also awaiting evacuation.

Although Iraq faces the immediate problem of how to organize a massive evacuation of up to 1 million people, in the longer term an exodus will make it easier for President Saddam Hussein to colonize the country he regards as part of his own. Already busloads of Iraqi civilians have been seen in Kuwait City, and in some cases they are said to have occupied apartments.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

The following dispatch has been received from a Washington Post correspondent.

Occupied but not conquered, Kuwait City today is a mixture of stubborn resistance and defiance by its native population, and fear bordering on panic among the Westerners and other expatriates held hostage here by Iraq.

Nine days after its tanks and troops invaded, food is still available, but people are aware the supplies are likely to dwindle fast. Many people also have no way of getting cash, since most banks are still closed. For several days now, there has been little troop or tank presence in the city, with the bulk of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's army massed south of here, closer to the border with Saudi Arabia.

Within the city, Iraqi troops are stationed at key government installations and most hotels. Along the Arabian Gulf Street cornice, tanks are placed beside the beach with turrets facing the sea and antiaircraft guns facing the city.

There are very few checkpoints in the city. Even British and U.S. passport holders are not being harassed. At these checkpoints and on the whole, Iraqi troops have been courteous and friendly to everyone, including Kuwaitis. For the most part, they appear to be disciplined troops.

Iraqi civilians, seen arriving in convoys of cars and buses on Aug. 4, are starting to set up a civilian administration. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday they called for everyone to return to work. Those who do not, they said, should consider themselves fired.

All Kuwaitis queried said they would refuse to go to work. The response of the large expatriate community in Kuwait, which does most of the work in the country, is not yet clear. Many Filipinos, Egyptians and Pakistanis are trying to leave the country.

Western embassies, in addition to trying to calm their panicked nationals, are now faced with an Iraqi demand -- conveyed Thursday afternoon -- that they must shut down and report to Baghdad by Aug. 24. Several embassies contacted said they do not know how they are going to respond to this demand.

Outside the 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew, people are allowed to travel freely around town. Telephone and telex lines have not been able to make international connections since early on Aug. 3, the day after the invasion. In some neighborhoods, even local calls are not possible. The U.S. Embassy lost its phones on Aug. 3, but electricity and water are operating and gasoline stations are still open.

From the beginning of the invasion, Iraqi troops and tanks have stayed away from the U.S. Embassy, apparently having specific orders not to go near it.

For several nights this week, Kuwaitis went to their rooftops in a number of neighborhoods and precisely at midnight began shouting "Allahu Akhbar" -- God is Greatest -- and then slogans against the occupation. The outcries lasted 15 minutes.

By far the bravest displays of resistance have been the daily demonstrations begun Sunday, Aug. 5, by women in several neighborhoods including Rumaithiya, Jabiriyah, Mushrif and Sabah Salim.

They gather in the late afternoon. Most of the time the women, including teenagers, wear black chadors. Carrying pictures of the emir and crown prince as well as posters demanding Iraq's withdrawal, they walk down the main roads for about an hour. The marches have drawn increasing numbers, starting with about 60 women and growing to 300 to 400.

In recent days, Iraqi troops have been taking a more aggressive response to these demonstrations -- firing into the air and then at the women. Various sources have reported several injuries during these demonstrations. One Kuwaiti source said four persons, including a 16-year-old girl, died of injuries received during a demonstration in Jabiriya on Aug. 8, but this could not be confirmed.Mixed Treatment of Westerners

In the first few days after the invasion, selected Westerners were picked up by Iraqi forces as a deliberate policy -- 35 British military advisers taken from their compound, for example, and Americans taken from oil facilities and hotels. While this was going on, however, other Westerners, including Americans, were not bothered by Iraqi troops. Pickup of Westerners appeared to have stopped several days ago.

The situation for Westerners, however, took a drastic turn for the worse on Thursday when the Iraqi liaison with Western diplomats here informed them that:Citizens of the United States, Canada, West Europe and Australia would not be allowed to leave Kuwait;Diplomats of all embassies here must report to Baghdad by Aug. 24. Those who wish to leave the country must then submit a list of names and they would be informed within a week of who could leave;Embassies here should do nothing other than ensure the protection of their nationals. If Iraq thought an embassy was protecting anyone not of its own nationality, Iraqi troops would feel free to enter the embassy.

Said a Western source on learning this: "It's clear we're faced with a hostage situation bigger than any previous one."

There are many Americans living in the U.S. Embassy compound, which includes homes and embassy offices. Hundreds of others are still scattered in apartments throughout the city. They have organized themselves in groups to maintain contact, secure food and fuel and get messages from the U.S. Embassy.

But many of them are suffering, at best, from cabin fever, and, at worst, from nightmares and terror. One woman, standing in a friend's kitchen, broke into tears speaking of the possibility of a gas attack by Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, the only way most of them get news is from CNN, via satellite dishes in their buildings.

There was a brief moment of deep concern when the "rumor" spread Aug. 9 that President Bush was going on vacation. One American burst into our apartment and asked if that had been reported on CNN. On being told no, he called a friend to say it appeared to be just "a nasty rumor. We certainly don't want Dan Quayle in charge for two weeks!"

The perception has now set in that, indeed, it may be a long haul before the Americans and other Westerners here are allowed to travel out.Fear Among Non-Westerners

The panic and fear also have spread throughout the non-Western expatriate communities here. There are long lines outside the Indian and Pakistani embassies. But the situation appears to be the worst at the Philippine embassy where, according to staff there, 3,000 Filipinos are now living in the embassy's two buildings.

People are crammed inside, along the stairs, on the roof, and in the basement. They are also camped outside in vans, buses and cars. Washing hangs outside the windows. One can barely move inside the main building.

Many of the Filipinos are domestic workers, whose Kuwaiti employers fled or sent them to the embassy for protection. A few worked for members of the royal family. They said they and their employers were awakened Aug. 2 by the sound of fighting. "They panicked," one maid said of her employers. She said they fled in cars about 10 a.m. without packing anything.

An embassy official said many of the Filipinos said they have no money. He said he helped them get food on the first few days, "when there were about 300 people" there. But now food is scarce. Those interviewed said they are pooling what money they have to go and buy food, or friends are bringing it to them.

The Filipino women, having heard of rapes of compatriots by Iraqi troops, are terribly frightened. One Filipino said Iraqi soldiers came into the house where he lived with other Filipinos, stole their money and raped two of the women. I could not find these women. I did interview one woman who said she was ordered to undress by an Iraqi, but was saved when a friend came into the room.

Several of the Filipinos also said that about five Iraqi troops entered the embassy itself, apparently looking for someone. "I don't feel safe even here," said one Filipino inside the embassy, adding that on Aug. 8 a convoy of 23 buses and cars with Filipinos tried to leave Kuwait to Saudi Arabia, but were turned back.

Until the Aug. 8 declaration by Iraq that it had annexed Kuwait, no Iraqi civilian or military officials were made available to Western diplomats for discussions. The first contact was made that afternoon, when Abdel Jabar Ghani was presented to them as their liaison -- although the real negotiations on the fate of Westerners are taking place in Baghdad. Ghani is Iraq's former ambassador to Kuwait, but now he is a general and wears a military uniform. He is described as a close associate of Saddam.

Iraqis dressed in civilian clothes began pouring into Kuwait on Aug. 4. Two witnesses described one convoy that entered that day as having 200 to 300 cars and buses. There are already Iraqi taxis driving around town, and Iraqi police cars.

Employees of Al Qabas, the leading government-controlled Kuwaiti newspaper, were called at home and told to report for work. One Kuwaiti source said Kuwaiti employees have refused to go in, but some Palestinians and Egyptians have gone to work. He said that earlier in the week when he visited Al Qabas, the Iraqis had shut down all news agency wires except the official Iraq News Agency.

The Iraqi presence has also instilled great fear of speaking freely on the phone, as people are now assuming they are being tapped.

"Now everyone is afraid to speak and I hate that," said one Egyptian working here. "You don't know who is Iraqi and who is Kuwaiti because everyone is wearing a shirt and trousers," he added, referring to the fact that many Kuwaitis have doffed their traditional dishdashas in order not to draw attention to themselves.

Kuwaiti Response and Resistance

On Aug. 5, three days after the invasion, 11 young Kuwaitis met in a room of the sort that most Kuwaiti homes have where men gather to discuss politics. They were all friends and had been active in the pro-democracy movement before the invasion. They trailed in bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, with three days' growth of beard. The mood in the room was angry, sullen and shocked.

Like most Kuwaitis, they never dreamed Saddam would go so far to get his way. "I still can't believe it," said one 22-year-old Kuwaiti. Also like most Kuwaitis, they had organized to resist the Iraqi occupation, saying they would never accept rule by Baghdad. "It's Hitler invading Poland," said another.

It is clear that Kuwaitis who remain behind here are opposing their occupiers. It also appears that so far there are several centers of opposition, working independently of each other. These include: members of the royal family still here and in hiding, some military people, the mosques, the pro-democracy movement, women on their own who appear to be spontaneously doing what they can to show their resistance.

There also has been armed resistance, which is hard to quantify, but clearly there.

The evidence of feelings has included Kuwaiti flags draped on fences and road signs, or hoisted on the roofs of homes. Photographs of the emir and crown prince have been taped to store windows, bank doors, school walls -- and they are not always ripped down.

In some neighborhoods heavily populated by native Kuwaitis, such as Rawda and Rumaithiya, anti-Iraqi graffiti have been spray-painted on walls: "Down with occupation!" "Yes to a constitutional Kuwait!" and "Death to Saddam Hussein and his Barbarian Armies!"

On the evening of Aug. 7, shortly before dusk, I saw a young boy standing on a car roof driven by a family member. He was using spray paint to black out street signs so Iraqi troops could not find their way.

A demonstration I witnessed on Aug. 6 in Rumaithiya drew about 60 women. No Iraqi troops appeared. "We don't want Iraq, we don't want Saddam. We want Jabir and Saad" -- the emir and crown prince -- said one woman as she walked down the middle of Nasser Mubarak Street.

"All women of Kuwait are resenting this [invasion]. They are protesting this," said another.

Pamphlets have been distributed, sometimes in English, by fax to Western embassies here. One, written in English, spoke of Saddam Hussein in harsh words: "Do not be fooled by Saddam's Arabism and his love to democracy. . . . What Saddam did? What a Republic he built!!! It is based on terror, kidnapping and killing."

The Kuwaiti opposition also has begun to publish a newsletter, four pages, called Samood Eshab, or Popular Resistance. So far, it has come out twice.

To show their resistance, Kuwaitis also have said they will refuse to go to work, except for essential services such as at hospitals. "We don't want people to go to work because then everything would be normal. We don't want the country to be normal," said one U.S.-educated Kuwaiti.

I asked this person, a Shiite Moslem, about Shiite feelings. He said he is refusing to leave Kuwait. "That is what the Iraqis want," he said. "We don't want to take credit as Shiites for staying here. We want to take credit as Kuwaitis that we are staying."

In an interview, a 29-year-old member of the royal family said that "most of the second generation of the family are . . . still in Kuwait" and, like him, in hiding. He said they are in contact with each other and with some military people are organizing armed resistance, mostly hit-and-run ambushes of solitary Iraqi soldiers or small groups. There have been reports of Iraqi soldiers shot but it has not been possible to confirm them.

"We are trying to do what we can. Time is on our side," he said. "They are here. . . . We want to confuse them like they confused us the first few days. We were confused."

He said another tactic is to make "propaganda to the Iraqi soldiers themselves, to say what they are doing is wrong."

Clearly the wealthy Kuwaitis have lost much already. If the occupation and annexation are not reversed, all their financial assets will be lost. "Everyone is shocked," said an industrial engineer, who has U.S. citizenship because his Kuwaiti father married an American. "But many of them still have not realized what has happened. There are so many millionaires here -- and now, they have nothing."

But even among poor Kuwaitis, the anti-Iraqi feelings are strong. In the home of one such family today, Aug. 11, a 24-year-old man said his family was against the occupation "because we are all one family, Kuwaitis." His 29-year-old sister brought out from a bedroom one of her anti-occupation works: a home-made Kuwaiti flag with tiny cut-outs of Kuwait pasted on it -- the official seal and crown prince's picture.

Asked whether anybody in the family had gone to work that day, the sister replied: "Who would they work for? The Iraqis? We don't want them. When the Sabahs [the ruling family] come home, we will go to work." A small girl in the house said she listened to Kuwait Radio "every day. It comes from Saudi Arabia."

In another home of a well-known wealthy Kuwaiti family, the feelings were the same. But in an indication of the fears pervading the city, the family had been sleeping on the first floor of their home, keeping most of the lights out at night, and while I was there, they removed their family name from the front of the house.

Many other prominent Kuwaitis who are not members of the royal family have also gone into hiding, their telephones unanswered.

Armed resistance by civilians began Aug. 3, the day after the invasion, as small arms were distributed to various sites for pickup by civilians. The arms apparently came from military stores or armories so far hidden from Iraqis.

At one civilian facility, I saw a stockpile of small arms amassed in a guardhouse by the back door. While there, we saw a harried Kuwaiti load up his Mercedes with arms to take to the neighborhood of Kaifan.

Civilian or loyalist resistance remained strong for most of Aug. 3 in Kaifan. Another source said armed Kuwaiti men were controlling part of the neighborhood. Iraqis later came in with tanks in response.

In another neighborhood where the local police station remained in the control of Kuwaiti police for several days after the invasion, arms were also distributed to Kuwaiti civilians.

The Kuwaitis thus have put up more resistance than anyone expected -- both militarily the first day and, since then, politically. Their will has clearly not yet been broken. But also, they are helped by the fact that in most of the city, Iraqi troops are absent or present in light numbers. In addition, the Iraqi security apparatus, as of today, Aug. 11, has not yet made its full presence felt. Most foreign observers expect this will happen once the Iraqis are more firmly in political control.

Kuwaitis' Hopes for the Future

Despite the unanimous demand among all these Kuwaitis that the royal family must return, it is already evident that if that happens, Kuwait will still never be the same again.

"I've already told the royal family," said the Shiite Kuwaiti, "that we, as Kuwaitis are going to collect money to rebuild" the burned royal Dasman Palace. "We are going to rebuild the whole damage to prove to them that we are one family and one unit."

"But, we want parliament back," he added.

"We believe that if we had freedom here in journalism the people would have had time to make decisions when [the Iraqis] had 100,000 troops on the border and they didn't publish it. That's the worst thing. Then people could have had time to get food and soldiers would have had time to get ready to defend themselves.

"We have to say one thing to the emir if he comes back. We want democracy here and we want parliament back."

"Kuwait will never be the same again," said another Kuwaiti. "The royal family's legitimacy and image is not the same. We want them back, but we will ask them, 'Why didn't you do this, and this.'"

Several Kuwaitis said they had been told by military people that although they wanted to fight, their top officers had fled and they were left without direction. "I have seen a lot of military people during these days," said one Kuwaiti, "and they have bitter feelings. They wanted to fight, but they had no commanders."

In another indication Kuwait cannot return to what it was even if Iraq leaves, there has been a range of feelings, not all of it sympathetic to Kuwaitis, among its large foreign communities, especially Palestinians.

The Palestinians are clearly divided in their sentiments. Many are pro-Iraqi and enthusiastic about the intervention. Typical of this view was a 54-year-old Health Ministry worker who has been here 13 years. "I hope to God Iraq wins," he said, because "Saddam wants to solve the problem in Palestine."

But others who had lived here longer or were born here declared they were with the Kuwaitis. A 33-year-old nurse, who came here at the age of 4, said he does not believe that Iraq's presence in Kuwait will help Palestinians "because maybe Iraq came here only to take Kuwait, not to help people."

Said a Palestinian woman: "Maybe now the Kuwaitis will understand us better. They are always blaming us, asking us why did we leave our country. Let's see how many Kuwaitis stay here."

The Egyptians appear clearly in favor of the Kuwaitis. But other expatriates -- bitter over how they are treated by wealthy Kuwaitis who restricted their stay here; refused to let them have their dependents, except under certain circumstances; and never gave them citizenship, no matter how long they lived here -- are not so sympathetic. Said one Sri Lankan: "I think this [the Iraqi invasion] is God's punishment. God gave these people a lot of money, but they didn't help the poor people. There is one set of rules for Kuwaitis and one for other people. God is telling them something."

The Lebanese typically are taking their "second catastrophe" with humor and an eye on dollars. "It's the second time it has happened to me," said one hotel worker. "First in Lebanon and now with the Kuwaiti dinar. He had nearly $18,000 deposited in Kuwaiti banks and the Kuwaiti dinar is now equivalent to an Iraqi dinar, a huge drop in value.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

The following is an eyewitness account of recent events in Kuwait.

By day, Kuwait City feels like the eye of a storm. Its deserted streets are eerily calm and quiet, even as Iraqi troops and missiles continue to move south past the city to Kuwait's border with Saudi Arabia. Burned garbage and trash smolder in empty lots and on sidewalks, and shelves in most stores become barer day by day. Hundreds of homes are empty, and cars driving on the main highways now give off a low hum from the washboard-like ruts caused by the treads of heavy tanks that have passed through the city in the past three weeks.

The royal palaces are in ruins, and the Kuwaiti flag, which flew over the exiled emir's Dasman Palace, scene of heavy fighting on the first day of Iraq's invasion, was lowered Aug. 13. The scenic coast road that passes by Dasman Palace is littered with wrecked cars, a burned-out Kuwaiti armored personnel carrier and shards of glass. One recent day, a solitary camel walked along the beach in front of the palace, and Iraqi soldiers fooled around with a golf cart stolen from a nearby marina.

Westerners caught by Iraq's invasion, including about 2,500 Americans, are hiding in their homes and apartments to avoid being detected and detained by Iraqi soldiers. For the most part, they have ignored repeated Iraqi demands, first made last Thursday, for American and British nationals to assemble at designated hotels in Kuwait City.

The fate of the Western residents, whom President Bush now calls "hostages," appears to hinge on a showdown at noon Friday, when the Iraqi government has told all foreign embassies in Kuwait City to close. Diplomats who do not voluntarily move to Baghdad by then will lose their diplomatic immunity, they have been told.

It is not clear to many diplomats what will happen if they refuse to comply with this order, but at least one European envoy said he expects the Iraqis to detain those who do not obey. He said he bases his assessment on the local Iraqi authorities' repeated assertions that diplomats will be given protection under the fourth Geneva Convention, which governs treatment of civilian wartime prisoners.

"What is happening now is exactly like what happened before the invasion," he said. "The Iraqis are saying what they are going to do and nobody believes them. With the Iraqis, we have to remember that the unthinkable is thinkable."

It is also not clear whether diplomats who move to Baghdad before this deadline will be allowed to take along their nationals now in Kuwait. But as one Western diplomat said, even if non-diplomats are allowed to accompany embassy personnel to Baghdad, "our belief is that at the moment, it's better for them to be" in Kuwait City because it is safer.

The United States and Britain have already said they will not comply with the Iraqi demand to close their embassies on Friday. U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Howell III has said that if he is forced to leave Kuwait, he will demand that all Americans who want to do so be allowed to go with him. Howell has also said that he was continuing his efforts to negotiate with the Iraqis an orderly evacuation of Americans, either by an airlift or overland by car to Saudi Arabia, but was making little headway.

While dozens of Americans, including embassy personnel and their dependents, are living inside the embassy compound, the bulk of the American community remains scattered throughout the city in homes and apartments. They are keeping in touch with each other and with the embassy through a warden system. The demand for Americans to gather at hotels set off panic as people feared they would be sent to Iraqi military and civilian installations for what could become long stays in case of a military standoff.

Now restricted to their homes, Americans remain glued to radios and, when available, to Cable News Network television. One item they relished was about the Iraqi ambassador to Washington, Mohamed Mashat, telling reporters that Westerners in Iraq and Kuwait were fine and "having a good time."

Most Americans have already put their belongings into storage for shipment later, have stored enough food to last for weeks and are keeping their automobile fuel tanks full.

The embassy's local phone service, interrupted Aug. 3, the day after the invasion, was restored a week ago. But for more than a week the embassy has not been able to send family messages to relatives in the States, as it did in the days shortly after the invasion, because of technical problems with its already limited communication capability with Washington.

Although some Westerners have escaped Kuwait by driving over the desert into Saudi Arabia, these routes have become increasingly dangerous in the last week as the Iraqis have moved to close them down. They have set up more checkpoints on side roads into the desert, turning back those attempting to flee. There have been unconfirmed reports that they have also begun to mine some desert roads and to arrest people rather than turning them back.

In addition, there have been reports, so far unverified, about cars stuck in the desert sands with families perishing from thirst and the heat, which reaches temperatures of more than 120 degrees.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Asian foreigners who comprise the main work force in Kuwait are leaving the city by the thousands every day. They are traveling by car to Iraq and then Jordan. Asians have also begun crossing the newly opened border between Iraq and Iran.

Many diplomats are faced with terrible dilemmas. An Egyptian recently sat bewildered and dazed in his office as hundreds of his fellow citizens outside demanded information and help on getting out of Kuwait. "Listen to them," he said. "People are in a frenzied mood. They want to get out, and there is no safe way. Egyptians are, after all, feeling that this [embassy] is a place they can call home, but [after Friday] to whom can they turn?"

A Western diplomat told of one of his countrymen calling up in panic after hearing about a possible chemical weapons attack. Sobbing, the man begged the diplomat to take his children into the embassy. "It's the worst feeling," the diplomat sighed. "He's crying, the babies are crying and you are crying."

Kuwaiti Resistance Efforts

Kuwaitis themselves remain defiant of Iraqi occupation nearly three weeks after Baghdad's tanks rolled through the streets of their capital.

By day, this opposition is registered in a boycott by Kuwaitis of their jobs, except for essential services such as hospitals and power plants. By night, the message is sent by armed resistance groups that are targeting small units of Iraqi soldiers and military convoys. In one attack early last Thursday, a rocket reportedly hit the former Iraqi Embassy in Kuwait City, which now serves as political headquarters for the local Iraqi authorities. Iraqi officials admitted to Western diplomats that their embassy was hit.

The extent and effectiveness of the Kuwaiti resistance is difficult to assess. The sound of nighttime firefights and the sight of burning Iraqi military vehicles bear witness to these clandestine hit-and-run attacks.

This paramilitary resistance appears to involve several groups, some better organized than others. The participants include both civilian and military people who were in the country at the time of the invasion and who so far have evaded Iraqi detection.

The anti-Iraqi demonstrations by Kuwaiti women that marked the first days of occupation have stopped since Aug. 10. According to several sources, four people, three women and a man, were killed and 15 injured when Iraqi troops opened fire on one of the last demonstrations, which took place in the suburb of Jabiriyah Aug. 8.

An underground newsletter called Samood Eshaab, or Popular Resistance, continues to be published, distributed hand-to-hand after it has been photocopied. Eight issues have come out so far. Kuwaiti women also have been putting out their own newsletter, called Kuwaitein.

One Kuwaiti source said that although Kuwait lost "half" of its warplanes during the invasion, the rest were flown to Saudi Arabia.

Iraqi Occupiers Distracted

Up to now, these armed resisters have operated with relative impunity, partly because the Iraqi troop presence within Kuwait City is at a bare minimum. Tanks and military trucks once stationed inside the city are no longer there, presumably sent toward the southern border.

The local Iraqi authorities also appear to be distracted from the local resistance by two more immediate and larger problems: the threat of a military confrontation with the United States and implementing Saddam's demand that foreign embassies close down and Western nationals be rounded up.

These priorities have also slowed down Iraqi efforts to set up an administration in Kuwait City. Government offices and banks for the most part remain closed, as Kuwaitis refuse to report for work and foreigners flee the country. Iraqi doctors, nurses and cooks are now fully staffing the Sabah Hospital, which has been renamed Saddam Hussein Hospital.

Left with no municipal services, Kuwaitis are organizing their neighborhoods, including the burning of garbage. "This is something Kuwaitis normally don't do, as spoiled people," said one Kuwaiti.

Kuwaiti sources say they have confirmed that all 10 of the people named to be in the Kuwaiti temporary free interim government before Iraq annexed Kuwait on Aug. 9 were Kuwaitis who were captured or wounded during the invasion. These sources said that the Iraqis used their names when announcing the temporary government. Six of them are believed to be still alive and held by the Iraqis.

Kuwaitis are quickly finding resources to cope with their new status as underdogs. Long accustomed to lives of luxury, conspicuous consumption and independence generated by their oil wealth, they are now giving top priority to regaining what their prosperity did not protect: Kuwait's identity as a sovereign country.

Many say they are still shocked by the Iraqi invasion. "I can't believe that Arab brothers did this to us," said one woman. "The day that they said that Kuwait doesn't exist anymore," he said, referring to Baghdad's annexation of her country, "I went outside into the garden and looked for my country. I cried. I didn't want to cry in front of my children."

"We are used to wealth, as you can see," her husband said as he pointed to a table spread with food in his well-appointed home. "But even if it gets to where we have only water, we will not leave Kuwait or put our heads down to the Iraqis."

Many Kuwaiti men have sent their families out but refuse to leave themselves. Others, who were vacationing outside Kuwait, have returned since the invasion. "If everyone leaves, we will give Kuwait to them on a dish of gold," said one Kuwaiti. "If Kuwait is empty, that will encourage Iraqis to come with their families to live in our homes."

Food is still available, though not as easily or in the same abundance and choice as before. While fresh vegetables and fruit are becoming scarce, stocks of rice and bread are said to be enough for several more weeks. Most shopkeepers, who are now forced to accept the Iraqi dinar from customers, are not price-gouging.

In some places outside Kuwait City, however, the food situation appears desperate. Near the town of Wafra, close to the Saudi border, for example, about 4,000 foreign workers on a farm had only bread that they were making out of chicken feed only a week after the invasion.

Iraq has announced that students are to report to school when classes are scheduled to begin next month. Few Kuwaitis are likely to turn up. Said one 16-year-old: "Maybe they will bring Iraqi teachers to be over us. We won't go. We won't accept that."

Kuwaitis' hopes remain high that U.S. intervention will win them back their country, and President Bush's popularity is soaring. There is already talk of putting up a statue of Bush after this is all over or naming a street in Kuwait City after him. One Kuwaiti, whose wife gave birth on the day of the invasion, said, "I'm going to name him after a hero who defended the country," adding: "If Bush was a good-sounding name in Arabic, I would name him that."

Iraqi Morale Problems

There are many indications of low morale among Iraqi soldiers, according to diplomats and Kuwaitis. Unlike occupiers elsewhere, Iraqi soldiers do not swagger in town; some appear uncomfortable and embarrassed about having invaded another Arab country and claim that they did not know they were taking over Kuwait.

Kuwaitis report that the Iraqi soldiers tell them that they believed they were coming to help Kuwait overthrow the emir or to conduct a military exercise with other Persian Gulf countries.

A number of Kuwaitis say food appears to be a problem for many soldiers; several have knocked on doors asking for food and water. There are also numerous reports of Iraqi soldiers surrendering their weapons to Kuwaitis and asking for civilian clothes. One Western woman said she watched from her window as three soldiers entered a home and emerged minutes later without their guns and in civilian clothes. A diplomat said he has been told that some wounded soldiers have asked foreign hospital staffers for help in escaping.

One Kuwaiti woman told of seeing an Iraqi soldier buy cake and a Pepsi-Cola in a supermarket, rush outside and sit on the curb. His hands were shaking as he opened the cellophane and wolfed down the cake, she said.

According to Western diplomats, the situation in the south is even worse, with water and food in short supply for the troops on the Saudi border. One diplomat said he had heard of nearly 100 Iraqi deaths from sunstroke.

In addition, there have been indications of clashes between groups of Iraqi soldiers. Several sources reported that between 150 and 200 Iraqi military casualties were brought into Adan hospital Friday. Kuwaiti sources said the casualties had been caused by a fight between two groups of Iraqi soldiers in the south, but this could not be independently confirmed.

Some Rapes, Looting Reported

On the whole, Iraqi troops have been disciplined, treating Kuwaitis and others with courtesy and respect. However, there have been several confirmed instances of rape and many automobile thefts by soldiers. One Egyptian said he was stopped on the airport road by three soldiers who forced him out of his car and drove it off. Local residents say there have been scores of such incidents.

Diplomats have confirmed that at least two German women were raped in the early days after the invasion. In addition, 14 Thai women were held and sexually abused for four days, from Aug. 10 to 14, by Iraqi soldiers in Mangaf, about 15 miles south of Kuwait City. Two of the women escaped and notified the Thai embassy, which sent a diplomat to rescue the others.

Kuwaiti sources said a Palestinian doctor working at Mubarak Hospital was raped by an Iraqi soldier.

Looting and property damage, which was not widespread in the initial days after the invasion, gradually increased until the Iraqis began clamping down last week. Witnesses have said that in addition to Iraqi troops, foreign civilians also participated in the looting.

Most of the damage appears to have taken place in the industrial suburb of Shuwaikh, where automobile showrooms have been emptied and burned. One local dealership is said to have lost 4,000 new cars from its showrooms. Civilians have also reported seeing Iraqi military trucks hauling away boats from marinas and other trucks loaded with furniture heading north toward Iraq. Several Kuwaiti Air passenger planes, including huge Airbuses, have also been flown to Baghdad, Kuwaiti sources said.

Residential areas have not been looted or damaged. And despite the losses, Kuwait's infrastructure remains intact: roads, power plants, desalinization plants, oil fields and refineries have not been damaged.

In an effort to stop the looting, Baghdad announced last week that theft is now a capital offense. Iraqi officials told Western diplomats that if they wanted to see evidence of this new get-tough policy, they should go to the Kuwait City corner of Hilali and Ahmad Jabir streets. There they could view the body of a still-uniformed Iraqi officer who hung by the wrists from a construction crane all day last Wednesday. The officer, a lieutenant colonel or a major, had been shot in the head before being hung from the crane and a sign was posted saying, "Here is a man who stole from the people."

The resistance newsletter Samood Eshaab, however, quoted Iraqi sources as saying that the officer had not been looting, but rather led a dissident group in one of the inter-Iraqi military clashes.

A Tunisian taxi driver surveyed the empty streets of Kuwait City and commented, "We are all emigres, but it's still sad. They are making Kuwait into another Beirut." An Influx of Iraqis

Iraqi civilians, whose dinars now equal Kuwaiti dinars and thus have increased 12 times in value, have flocked to Kuwait City to shop. At the Sultan Gourmet Supermarket, one employee said that the Iraqis came "like a hurricane" on Aug. 9 and 10. "They were buying everything," he said. "Even things they didn't know what they were. They were buying cat food, which they thought was bologna, and one of them, holding shaving cream, asked me what is this. I said, 'Oh, it's very good. Try it on toast.' "

Iraqi internal security forces are already making their presence felt. Some of the Westerners recently picked up off the streets were reportedly arrested by plainclothes officers. And when Western diplomats were called to a meeting at the Iraqi embassy last week, they saw a group of prisoners being led out of a room. The prisoners were blindfolded and unable to walk on their own, the diplomatic sources said.

There is no more Kuwaiti television, only broadcasts from Baghdad. This television station now shows a map of Iraq that includes Kuwait. The text on the map says it shows Iraq from Zakhu, near the Turkish border in the north, to the city of "al-Nidaa." Al-Nidaa is the new name of Kuwait's al-Ahmadi, south of Kuwait City.

The Iraqis have also begun to publish a new newspaper called al-Nidaa, which they are putting out in the offices of Kuwait's al-Qabas newspaper. Like every Baghdad newspaper, al-Nidaa runs a huge picture of Saddam on its front page every day.

Among the programs recently shown on Baghdad television in Kuwait was a film about AIDS that said 40 percent of Americans have the disease and the reason American troops are coming to Saudi Arabia is to spread AIDS there.

For many non-Kuwaitis who have lived in the country for decades, the Iraqi invasion is also a disaster. A Syrian who has lived in Kuwait City for more than 30 years, first working in the Ministry of Education and then as a building contractor, said he had his life savings in Kuwaiti banks. "I trusted the banks," he said. If the Iraqi occupation is not reversed and sanctions lifted, it is doubtful that the Syrian will get any of his money out of the country. Last week he sent his wife and five children out of Kuwait through a clandestine desert road. "My house is empty now," he said. "It's a problem."

Saddam, the Syrian said, "has put ink in the water. How can we drink from it anymore?"

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

It lasted a mere month, and I never left what was once the rich, proud capital of Kuwait, but during that time I took a journey that was very long.

From the first confused moments when the sound of Iraqi artillery shells awakened me at 5:30 a.m. on Aug. 2 until I escaped from Kuwait in a caravan of cars through the desert yesterday, I witnessed the destruction, fear, chaos and tears caused by an invasion that sought to wipe a small country off the face of the map.

A little more than three weeks later, Kuwait City is a scared, half-empty town, a sad reflection of what it once was. The streets are still littered with smashed cars and burnt-out Iraqi military vehicles hit by Kuwaiti resistance fighters. Crack Iraqi troops man roadblocks around the city, looking for Westerners and seizing guns from Kuwaitis. The central business district is still closed, with many shops looted.

Foreign embassies are under siege. Their remaining staff members, whom Iraq refuses to treat with diplomatic immunity, are holed up without electricity and water. U.S., British, Canadian and European nationals, who in the early days of the invasion generally moved about freely, are now hiding in their homes and apartments waiting for a dreaded knock on the door from Iraqi officials.

Thousands of Kuwaitis and expatriate workers from Arab countries, Bangladesh, the Philippines, India and Pakistan have fled the country. And those Kuwaitis who have stayed are day by day losing hope that their country will soon be returned to them.

As of today, according to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the tiny desert emirate of Kuwait has become the 19th province of Iraq -- its status as an independent state and its 200 years of rule by the Sabah family now just footnotes to history as written in Baghdad.

But in Kuwait City, this latest decree from Baghdad was undoubtedly scorned by Kuwaitis as another "piece of theater," as they are fond of calling statements from their northern neighbor these days.

What is not theater, however, is the physical mess of Kuwait, the hundreds of lives -- Iraqis, Kuwaitis and expatriate workers -- that have been lost since the invasion and the seared national psyche of the people.

"When someone takes your country," said a Kuwaiti woman just days ago, "it's like tearing out your heart."

I arrived in Kuwait a week before the Iraqi invasion. In those days, Saddam's threats against Kuwait, his bullying rhetoric and even his huge military buildup on the border, still seemed like distant, familiar rumbles to most Kuwaitis.

Invasion? "Forget it," they said. "We've heard all this before from Iraq."

The beaches in the city were full in the late afternoons, and like every summer, those Kuwaitis who had the money were far away in Europe or America on vacation. The most that Western expatriates, including about 3,000 Americans and 4,000 Britons, had to worry about in this crime-free -- but also officially alcohol-free -- country was whether their homemade brew was fermenting well.

The Kuwaiti military was not even placed on alert, in deference to the idea that Saddam should not be provoked. That didn't change even when the Kuwaitis heard through foreign press accounts -- their own papers were forbidden by censors to reveal the fact -- that the Iraqis had amassed 100,000 troops on the border.

It was a fatal mistake.

Iraqi troops rolled through Kuwait, reaching the capital in buses, jeeps and pickups in the early hours of the invasion. By noon that day, there were Iraqi soldiers and tanks in the town of Wafra, just north of the border with Saudi Arabia. Kuwaiti defense forces put up resistance in several parts of Kuwait City and the town of al-Jahra. In some places, their fights lasted until nightfall on the first day, but in the end they were outmanned and outgunned.

In the early hours of Aug. 3, after filing a story on the invasion, I opened the glass door to the veranda of my room at the Kuwait International Hotel. It was deathly quiet, and the haze of smoke mingled with the smell of gunpowder and fire hung over the city. The Dasman Palace, from which the ruling emir, Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah, had fled less than 24 hours earlier and which was the site of fierce fighting that first day, was silent and dark.

Like everyone else, I asked myself if the events of that day had really happened. Had Iraq been so bold?

Also, like most foreigners, I assumed that in a few days time the borders would be opened for those who wanted to leave and that the exodus would start. But it never happened. We also thought that soon, in a few days at most, the international phone lines, which had been cut in the early hours of Aug. 3, would be restored.

In the first week after the invasion, my two colleagues from the Western press corps -- Dutch Radio reporter Hettie Lubberding and Financial Times correspondent Victor Mallet -- and I worked as if we were covering any story. We hired taxis to go around town and interviewed people on the streets, in hospitals, in hotels and on the phone. The Iraqis seemed more preoccupied with moving troops to the south than with tightening their grip on Kuwait City.

But then a group of Iraqi military and civilian officials checked into the Kuwait International Hotel, where I had been staying. Every day they left in buses to go to the Iraqi headquarters, at this time believed to be in the Iraqi Embassy, and returned each evening. They never said who they were or what they were doing, but it was clear they were important people who had come to administer the city.

When they checked in, Lubberding and I checked out. The last thing we wanted was Iraqis inquiring who we were.

I moved in with some Americans. They were part of a larger group that had worked for an engineering firm on a major project in Kuwait. Like most Americans stranded here after the invasion, they had organized themselves with a warden who kept in contact with the U.S. Embassy and informed them about efforts being made to evacuate the American community. At this point, most of them expected to leave Kuwait by convoy into Saudi Arabia, and their cars were always ready.

Food, some of it acquired with help from local residents, was stored communally for all to share. At night, to break the boredom and ease their fears, these Americans gathered for a shared meal and, when they were lucky, a new video. Novels were passed around. One night we played charades. "Uncle Sam Wants You" was easy to guess; "Madonna" was the toughest.

For these Americans, the greatest burden was, and still is, not being able to call home. The Iraqis' refusal to restore international phone lines has isolated Kuwait more effectively than any army. The whole country feels like it is living its nightmare in a cocoon.

And for us reporters, this was our greatest distress: We had first-hand accounts of what was going on in Kuwait, the place everyone was talking about, and no way to communicate it. We tried embassies, but the most that a couple of them allowed us was a one-paragraph pool report. We searched for people to carry out hand-written stories.

We became so desperate one afternoon that we seriously discussed -- having heard that Kuwaitis breed birds as a hobby -- trying to find a carrier pigeon that could fly our stories to Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

"Yes, but how many words can a pigeon carry?" someone asked. No, forget it.

About 12 days after the invasion, my two colleagues decided to make a run for it after Baghdad Radio announced that Iraqi troops had been ordered to "facilitate travel." As with so many Iraqi statements, it had a catch: Travel had to be through Iraq, and it was not clear that Westerners would be allowed to go unimpeded.

Nevertheless, my colleagues called at 11:30 p.m. to say they were going to try and would set out at 4:30 the next morning. With no transport and a nighttime curfew in force, I had no way of reaching their hotel to join them. Foreseeing this possibility, I had given Lubberding a story to file for me when she got out. Two days later, I heard they had made it to Saudi Arabia, but I still do not know exactly how.

In the days afterwards, Kuwait City became more tense and frightened. The early demonstrations by women protesting the invasion had stopped. People used the phones more discreetly, not knowing whether the Iraqis had brought in their bugging equipment. Banks and government offices were still shut. Roads were empty. And the pressure began to mount on foreign embassies to shut down, even though most of them still had hundreds of nationals in Kuwait needing help.

But as the Iraqi troop presence in Kuwait City remained relatively small and there were very few checkpoints, it was still possible to travel around the city and report. The only time I had to show my passport was on entering the Egyptian Embassy, where two Iraqi soldiers stood as sentries at the front gate. One of them took my passport, looked at my picture, looked at my face and gave the passport back -- saying nothing. He couldn't read English and apparently didn't know the navy blue cover meant American.

After Aug. 16, the danger to Westerners became more acute and haunting. That was the day Iraq first ordered British and American nationals to gather at local hotels. The order was ignored by most, but it clearly had tightened the noose.

Since then, most Westerners have not left their homes. Just a day before the Iraqi order, two Americans and I set out to try to escape through the southern desert into Saudi Arabia, as had been done by thousands of Kuwaitis and expatriates since the day of the invasion. I had obtained a map and directions for a route that had been used successfully before. Packing the car with our belongings -- and with bread and water -- we set out about 10 a.m. We made it out of the city on the main highway, but about two miles farther along, we were stopped by two Iraqi soldiers.

"Where are you going?" asked one soldier. No reply.

"Saudi Arabia?" he said laughing. No reply.

He asked to look inside the trunk, and up to this point we had the feeling these two were going to let us pass. But then an Iraqi officer got out of a pickup truck and came over to our car. He made a big U-turn with his hand. We complied and were back home at 11:30 a.m.

A few days later, I finally met someone who said he could help me get out of the country. I moved to a place where I would be closer to him and his family to facilitate the departure. These people showed tremendous hospitality and concern for my welfare, and they helped me do my job as a reporter, but I'm reluctant to say any more about them. If the Iraqis knew their identity, they would certainly be arrested.

Meanwhile, reports were mounting that the Iraqis were getting tougher with those attempting to flee, setting up more checkpoints and arresting people instead of turning them around. But eventually, the right contact was made, and I was told a little after 9 o'clock Monday morning that a convoy was leaving that day. It was as safe as any, but not 100 percent guaranteed, I was told. If I wanted to go, I should get ready.

I decided in a minute, mostly on instinct. I reasoned that the worst that could happen if the Iraqis spotted me was that I would be detained.

We left in a convoy of nine cars at about noon, heading toward the southern desert. By 1:20 p.m., we had passed several checkpoints and entered the desert. This is not the landscape of Lawrence of Arabia, but a flat expanse of sand with water towers and electrical power lines dotting the bleak scenery.

Everywhere we looked, cars were trapped in the sand, their engines dead or wheels stuck. With their hoods and trunks stuck in the air, they were pitiful, out-of-place sign posts of the desperate flight from Kuwait. One could only look and hope that the people who once sat in them -- hot, thirsty and near despair -- had been picked up by friends.

Three times, we had to stop to dig one of our cars out of the sand. Two of the nine vehicles had to be abandoned when their engines failed. We bounced along, holding our breath and scanning the horizon for Iraqi patrols.

We were lucky. We saw only two Iraqi soldiers sitting in the blazing sun on a solitary tank. They waved. We waved back. Just then, one of our cars sank in the sand. The two soldiers bolted off their armored perch. Maybe a bit of money passed hands, maybe they were just bored and tired. In any event, there was a friendly chat, and they let us pass.

The first I realized we were near the border was when I saw a young boy hanging out the window of another car, grinning from ear to ear. He pointed up ahead and thrust his fists in the air in a sign of victory. There it was behind a berm of sand. A Saudi border post and safety. It was quarter to four.

We drove into the yard and were warmly greeted. The Saudis carried over boxes of cold orange juice, water, cookies, bread and cheese. Passports were gathered for processing. We were told how what had been a flood of refugees and escapees in the early days of the invasion had now become just a trickle. And we heard of those who had not been as lucky as we: A Syrian only last week arrived at the border alone; his wife and children perished in the desert when their car failed.

And it was with mixed feelings that I climbed into the car of a kind U.S. diplomat who had been patiently waiting for Americans at the border for more than a week. I was the only one to arrive in eight days. As we headed south for Riyadh, I thought that my journey, in a sense, was now over. But somehow, remembering the Kuwaitis and Westerners held hostage whom I left behind, it doesn't yet seem finished.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)