DAMMAM, 23 March 2003 — War is again being fought in the region. Though the theater of operation has shifted from Dhahran to Kuwait, it brings chilling memories of 1990-91 when allied forces gathered in Dhahran to drive the Iraqis from Kuwait.
War is a frightening word even to those who are not directly affected by it. It is a more traumatic experience for a housewife caught in the middle of the operation. The wail of air raid sirens, the fear of chemical and biological weapons, the husband’s absence from home and the cries of scared children all trouble her existence.
This was the story of hundreds and hundreds of housewives, Saudis and expatriates alike, in the cities of Dammam and Alkhobar during the last war. No one could have been more disturbed at American threats to Baghdad than these “veteran” housewives.
The early morning of March 20, when America and Britain began their invasion of Kuwait, would have brought back memories of Jan. 15, 1991 when the then allied forces started bombardment of Baghdad.
It was around 1 a.m. when a telephone call from the Joint Information Bureau (JIB) of the allied forces based at Dhahran International Hotel told my journalist husband that he was to report immediately to the center. That was end of our eight-hour sleep for almost two months until the liberation of Kuwait. Soon after my husband left for the hotel, sirens started wailing. I rushed to put gas masks on my four children — all between four years and one-month-old. Even today the wailing alert sirens haunt my children.
A few minutes later a massive explosion shook our building. CNN correspondent Charles Jacho, who later became a household name in the Eastern Province, told audiences that a Scud missile had hit somewhere near the air base. Dhahran International Hotel (DIH), where my husband had gone, was just few yards away from the base. To add to my misery came a call from the then Saudi Gazette correspondent in Riyadh, Mahmood Saberi, who told me that the Scud had hit DIH. My first reflex was to call the hotel, but despite several attempts there was no answer, and I feared the worst. After an agonizing wait, I got a call from my husband that everything was fine and the Scud had been intercepted by a Patriot missile.
This was my initiation. From then on I and many like me received an education in war until we all graduated. If war on the one hand brought devastation, pain and trauma, then on the other hand it brought out positive aspects in people. War increases the protective instinct. It infuses a tremendous amount of self-confidence and belief in one’s own self. And above all it provides an immense exposure to the world, especially to a housewife who is restricted within the four walls of the house.
I was fortunate to have my initial lessons in journalism during this war. I was virtually coaxed by foreign journalists who could not make it to Dhahran to give them an update on the situation here. I was honored to interact with some well-known international journalists on the telephone. Since there were no mobile phones and no Internet, land line connections and fax were the only communication link. It became my job to take every incoming call and keep a tab on the fax. It was a tough job to deal with the inquisitive reporters from Times magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and people like Pulitzer-winner Carol Murphy, Kim Murphy of the LA Times, Peter Sisler of The Washington Times, and Deborah Amos of National Public Radio. They all had same queries about the war, people and their attitude.
One British journalist who managed to reach Dubai but could not get a visa for Saudi Arabia was so desperate to do his story that he literally begged me to go to the windows and have a good look at the street and then describe it to him. He wanted color.
Most of our friends preferred to move to safer places: Some went home and a few moved to Jeddah and other places Saddam’s Scuds could not reach. In our three-story building we were the only occupants. Alkhobar and Dammam turned into ghost towns.
The worst came on Feb. 27 when — without a word — my husband disappeared. On calling JIB and the Arab News office I found that the entire Arab News team was untraceable.
The Egyptian office boy, Muselhi, one of the nicest people I ever met, was also worried for “Ustaz Khaled and Saeed.” In the evening a Scud missile had its first effective hit when it fell on US barracks in Dhahran, killing nearly 100 American soldiers. Still the Arab News team was missing. It was only in the small hours of the next day that an Arab News war correspondent arrived home to tell me that he was returning from Kuwait to file a story and that the rest of the team were still in Kuwait City, sheltered in a hospital.
When he returned from Kuwait after a few hours, the wailing of sirens was replaced by honking cars and victory celebrations. The Arab News team’s job was not over until they reported the surrender and ceasefire agreement from Safwan in Iraq. Everything was over and life returned to normal, but I must admit that the normalcy become abnormal, quiet nights dull. The action left a kind of emptiness in its wake.
