KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait, 9 March 2003 — Ahmad Ayoub is as opposed to war as the next guy. But if he has to wait another month for the United States to attack Iraq, his textile business might not survive.
Folks in Kuwait have stopped spending money, hoarding their cash in case the Americans invade Iraq and the Iraqis retaliate with strikes on Kuwait City.
“Business is very down ... zero,” the Syrian immigrant says. “What can I do? I wait. After one month more, we cannot wait any longer. We’ll close the shop.” Months have passed. Diplomacy has dragged on. War hype has intensified, but several predicted start dates have come and gone. So now, some in Kuwait are getting tired of their war jitters.
“Nobody wants war. How come war?” Ayoub says. “But I want to know which way it will go. If war, OK, tell me. If no war, OK, tell me.” He stands inside a busy currency exchange near Safat Square, where the money changers say they’ve been swamped in recent weeks by immigrant workers rushing to wire money back to their home countries, and by Kuwaitis frantic to change their local dinars into US dollars.
People remember being stuck without cash when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and they worry that the value of the Kuwaiti currency will collapse if there’s a new war, said money changer Ezzat Sabbagh.
“They remember 1990 when all the banks closed and they could not get money,” Sabbagh said, standing behind thick glass in an office where tall stacks of $20 bills, Indian rubies and Egyptian bills are on display in the front window. Business has increased 50 percent in the past two weeks, he said. “They’re more worried, trying to get US dollars and the euro,” he said. “They see dollars as power that won’t lose value. We’re all worried about the situation.” At Kuwait International Airport, war jitters have juggled the usual comings and goings. The US and British embassies have issued travel advisories recommending that their citizens clear out of the region. So over the past month, flights to Europe and the United States have been crowded with expatriates, an airport official says.
The Philippines and India are making contingencies to evacuate tens of thousands of their citizens working in Kuwait as guest workers. Meanwhile, some Kuwaitis say they have canceled vacations, preferring to stay close to home with their families rather than risking a separation or travel disruptions if war shuts down commercial air travel in the Middle East. But some travel is going forward as usual. On Tuesday, workers from the Kuwait Public Authority for Compensation loaded 37 boxes of paperwork, water samples and oil-stained desert sand onto a commercial flight bound for UN offices in Geneva. Every week the agency submits “evidence” of damage caused by Iraqi invaders during the 1990-91 occupation to justify claims for war reparations administered by the United Nations.
Despite all the talk of a new war against Iraq, the boxes are a sign that the war 12 years ago is still not fully resolved.
“All the Kuwaitis want to change the Iraqi regime. We’ve had enough the last 12 years,” said Abdullah Essa, the Kuwaiti official overseeing the evidence shipment. Essa said his own family has been affected by war jitters. His son attends an English school, which has had to curtail many of its classes because the British instructors have been advised to leave the war zone. For others in Kuwait, life goes on as normal. At a bustling bazaar called the Souk Az Zal Al Kabeer, Egyptian men sit at a cafe smoking apple-flavored tobacco from water pipes while the television blares in front of them. At a fancy modern shopping center called Souk Sharq, former Kuwait army soldier Sultan Al-Bazil, 33, sips coffee at Starbucks, downplaying the makeshift bomb shelter he has put in his basement. He lived through the Iraqi invasion on Aug. 2, 1990. “We want the problem finished,” he said. “Get them out, and that’s it.” He said.
