“One hopes not. This hotel is not a military objective, and as I said, a number of their people are staying here, so I imagine they will want to keep it in good condition. I’m sure more of their people will arrive wanting rooms, but until the soldiers impose their presence on us we will try to function as usual.”
“Utilities are operational and supplies are sufficient, then?”
“For the time being, Inshallah.”
I got up to leave. “Thank you very much for taking the trouble to inform me,” I said. “Let’s hope it will all be over with soon.”
“Alas, I fear not. Bismallah, Mr. Fonko.”
Iraqi brass in the building, and me listed in the register as an American guest of the Al Sabah family. Action plan: Low profile. Blend in. Butt out at earliest opportunity.
The hotel had the usual array of boutiques, so I scuttled over there while there still was stock left, keeping to what cover the lobby crowd offered. The shops had opened for business. They featured European fashions, some pretty sharp stuff. I bought a couple outfits that looked serviceable and low-maintenance and wouldn’t stand out too much. I put it on my hotel tab. The desk changed some T-cheques into local dinars, so I was set for street money. I’d come with only one hat, part of my outdoorsy kit, never thinking I’d have to spend much time under the Arabian sun. Now it looked like I might be on the run some, and if so I’d need head cover, also some means of carrying water. The boutiques had nothing suitable, but possibly after things calmed down I could find something in the shops across the road. If the Iraqis were clouting parked BMWs for their audios, it would be a while before they got around to looting haberdasheries. Or so I assumed.
I retreated to my room and reviewed my face. My complexion could pass for local, face shape not too bad. My hair was dark enough if I oiled it a bit. In a couple days my beard would be thick enough to affect a van dyke with a pencil mustache. Then I could pass for a local, possibly in western wear and certainly in a robe and headdress.
I dialed the number of the U.S. Embassy and got a busy signal, meaning either they were swamped or their service had been cut off. The rest of the day was all about killing time, watching out the window, seeking information and re-dialing the U.S. Embassy. Finally my call got picked up by a harried clerk. He could tell me nothing. They could do nothing about my passport today. They were officially closed right now. They’d be open next on Sunday, operating business hours as usual. I made an appointment to see Ernest Toyler that morning. “Stay indoors for the time being and keep your head down. If you have a radio follow what BBC is reporting. Check back with us for further instructions,” the clerk advised and rang off.
Sunday, August 5, to Friday, August 10, 1990
Not much happened to me personally the next couple days, though plenty happened elsewhere all over town. I swam in the hotel pool and worked out in the fitness room. I listened to the BBC news on a neighbor’s shortwave radio. What else could I do, with no passport, no mission, no outside contacts and no firm notion of the situation?
My window gave me a grandstand view of the destruction of downtown Kuwait City. Waning old smoke plumes wafted upward among the glittering high rise towers, and new explosions and black billows erupted. Several buildings showed damage visible even from two klicks distance. Attack choppers flitted here and there strafing things and occasionally launching a rocket or two. Down on the roads nearby, more tanks rumbled along, convoying up and down Arabian Gulf Street and probing the wider side streets. Rag-tag Iraqi troops meandered around and loafed in the shade beneath overhangs, when they weren’t breaking into shops and stripping them bare. I saw a couple of them enter into the lobby of the Hilton, only to be shooed away by the Iraqi bigwigs staying here. More Iraqi bigwigs arrived every day.
Some visiting Brits with better local connections than mine talked about joining a convoy and making a break through the desert across the Saudi border. I guess they must have done it, because I didn’t see them the next day or thereafter. Out of curiosity I stepped out of the lobby and walked around the neighborhood for a look-see. A brace of rumpled Iraqi grunts sitting in the shade of some palm trees eye-balled me for a minute, then went back to comparing the wristwatches they’d stolen.
Outside in the open, the sounds of war came through clearer—explosions nearer and farther, occasional machine gun fire, small arms popping and pinging. I toured only a few blocks, curiosity not being enough motivation for a longer walkabout in 110F heat. I needed to do some shopping, but shops in the vicinity were closed. Those lacking rattle-down steel shutters displayed smashed windows and empty shelves. The shuttered ones stayed intact for the time being, having so far withstood Iraqi attempts to breach. Civilian car traffic moved on the streets now, though nowhere approaching the jams I’d seen on the roads when I arrived. The Hilton Hotel functioned more or less normally, and I was under no immediate threat so saw no point in pushing my luck. I stayed indoors and kept my head down, like the U.S. Embassy and the BBC exhorted.
Sunday morning, I readied up for my scheduled appointment at the Embassy. It sat across the street overlooking the Bay, a short enough walk to be endurable even in that heat. I reached the palm tree shaded Embassy compound gate without incident. I explained to the Marine guard my appointment with Ernest Toyler. He verified it over his walkie-talkie and waved me in. The crowd today numbered somewhat fewer than the pre-invasion mob, but was sizeable enough to keep the place jumping. I checked in with the receptionist, who indicated a sitting area where I should wait.
After fifteen minutes, an anguished middle-aged couple emerged from Toyler’s office, he leading the way as he assured them that everything would be fine. After ushering them out the portal he came over to me. “Good morning, Mr. Fonko. Sorry for the delay. Come into my office, please.”
We seated ourselves on opposite sides of his desk. “Sorry I can’t offer you coffee, but as you may imagine, we’re swamped, simply going out of our minds, and can’t do all the usual niceties.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Understandable. You’ve a good location here. Looks like a nice beach down below.”
“”It’s our private beach. Unfortunately our women can’t sunbathe on it. When they do, Kuwaiti men passing by on water skis wave their peckers at them. Their subtle hint about Muslim dress codes, I suppose, or maybe an expression of their opinion of western women. You say you have a problem with your passport?”
“When I arrived my Kuwaiti employer took it to attend to entry formalities and hasn’t yet returned it. Now I have no way to reach him, if he’s even still in Kuwait.”
“Your employer here was Fawaz Al Sabah, you told me? Fawaz Al Sabah is in Kuwaiti Intelligence. He probably evacuated with the rest of them. It seems the CIA gave them a four-hour heads up when the invasion commenced, and much of the government took off for Saudi Arabia in the country’s fleet of helicopters in the dead of night. Made good sense. In the circumstances it’d have been suicidal for them to stay and fight. Evacuated some fighter planes as well. A lot of their air force was caught on the ground and destroyed by Iraqi choppers and tanks. It appears to have been a well-planned and well-executed operation.”
“So, can you issue me a new passport, or at least some temporary documents?”
“Of course. Do you happen to have any suitable photos?”
“Could you use this?” I pulled out my photocopy. It was fairly clean.
“No, we’d have to Xerox it, and the copies would be too grainy. We have a photographer here. I’ll have him take the shots. We can have it ready for you by tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
“It will do. I’m not going anywhere that I know of. Tell me, are there any plans for an American evacuation?”
“Not at present. There aren’t that many Americans here, and they aren’t in immediate danger. The Iraqis shut down the airport, so they can’t leave anyhow.”
“What about overland, to Saudi A
rabia?”
“Chancy. The Iraqis patrol the border and sometimes arrest people trying to cross and confiscate their vehicles. The road south is not as good as the ones in Kuwait City, so cars going off it risk getting stuck in the sand. For the time being it’s best to stay put. The Iraqis are brutalizing the locals, but they’ve kept their hands off westerners so far.”
“The news has been spotty. Do you know of any developments back home?”
“Needless to say, the U.S. is very upset about it. It seems that the day before the invasion the Iraqi ambassador told an assistant Secretary of State that they were not going to move against anybody. Like the Japanese and Pearl Harbor all over again. Not that Iraq attacked the U.S., of course. President Bush hit the fan, as well you can imagine, and I understand he is taking it up with the United Nations pronto. Baker and Shevardnadze issued a joint American/Russian statement condemning the invasion and calling for an arms embargo. Most members of the Arab League condemned the invasion. Saddam claims that the troops came into Kuwait only to support a native revolt against the ruling family, and that they will leave as soon as the new government is stabilized. He expects the world to believe that? The man is barking mad.”
“Barking mad may be an understatement. I can’t imagine this army will be leaving any time soon.”
“Obviously they mean to stay. They’ve made sure not to damage the power and desalination plants, and they’re keeping the workers running them. They destroyed the Ministry of Information building and TV stations the minute they reached town and seized control of the newspapers.”
“Sounds to me like a full-scale takeover. Well, thank you, Mr. Toyler. I won’t take up any more of your time. I can pick up my passport tomorrow, then?”
“Come in the afternoon. The receptionist will help you.” He picked up the phone and called the man who took pictures. He told me how to find him. I thanked him for his help and went and had it done.
I returned to the hotel and had a cup of coffee. I decided I needed a better idea of what was happening in the city. From the window in my room civilian traffic seemed to be moving. If one were cautious, the danger might not be great. I went down to the lobby and asked the concierge to summon my driver. The concierge questioned my wisdom, but I pressed upon him some urgent business in town. He got on his phone and a few minutes later Raghu, my Indian driver, appeared.
“Are you up for a tour around the city?” I asked him.
“If it is necessary, certainly, sir,” he said.
“It is. Let’s go.”
I followed him down to the parking garage, and he led me to a well-used Chevrolet. “The Iraqi soldiers sometimes stop the nicer cars and steal them,” he explained apologetically.
“Nothing wrong with American iron,” I observed, though I don’t think he understood the reference.
The car ran all right. We emerged on the street out front. He turned left and drove gingerly along Arabian Gulf Street. “Best not make eye contact with the Iraqis,” he warned me. “One shouldn’t attract their attention.”
Point taken. I noted a number of burnt-out cars standing along the curb. Others sat on blocks, their wheels missing. Where there were no cars, as often as not a scattering of window glass glittered on the pavement. The Iraqis had been beavering away.
“I think we can manage this,” he said. “Traffic is coming and going. Ordinary people are going about their business. The Iraqis want them to keep the city operating.”
He followed Arabian Gulf Street around the point. I noted holes in one of the Kuwait Towers pylons as we passed. Apparently some hotspur tanker had tried to shoot it down. Inasmuch as the towers held a major amount of the city’s water supply, I hope he got a good dressing-down by his senior officers. Several big motor cruisers lay grounded on rocks outside the downtown marina. Iraqi thieves found out the hard way that running them isn’t as simple as it looks in the movies.
Traffic was light but smashed cars sat hither and yon. Raghu took a main road past the Great Souk, now a shambles thronged with looters. I could only imagine what a time they’d had at the gold souk.
Ambling among the high rises we saw buildings cannon-blasted to shambles. Fires blazed here and there, unattended. Facades showed bullet holes and fractured windows. We passed soldiers loading pickup trucks with the contents of stores—shoe stores, furniture stores, appliance stores, electronics stores, even a Kids R Us. Battered taxicabs, driven down from Basrah or Baghdad, were taking on stolen cargo. Clumps of discarded loot—didn’t meet the soldiers’ high standards, I guess—obstructed the streets. Out front of a shoe store the street was cluttered with empty shoe boxes and scattered running shoes. I saw a squabble among soldiers, probably over who called “dibs” first, coming to blows. A cemetery in town had received piles of recent fly-flocked corpses, with no burial details yet assigned. In the ambient heat that would be hard duty.
The sights were altogether sickening, but at least it was an improvement over what I’d seen in Cambodia. The Iraqis came out of the traditional soldier mold—killing people and breaking things—though they over-indulged the looting. Whereas the Khmer Rouge was like a low-tech neutron bomb. They killed the people but left the buildings intact.
I told Raghu to head back to the hotel. “I’ve seen enough. Nothing good can happen to us, driving around like this,” I remarked.
“Truly, sir.” He aimed us back at Arabian Gulf Street, a less distressing route than continuing through the city streets. “I have been hearing stories,” he said hesitantly.
“Stories?”
“Yes sir, from my friend who owns a shop. I wonder whether they can be credited.”
“Depends on the stories. What have you heard?”
‘Yesterday some Iraqi soldiers paid his shop a visit. He sells ladies’ clothing. The soldiers were collecting dresses to steal, and he overheard one of them claim he and his mates had happened upon a compound where Indian nurses at the hospital live. He boasted that it was better than a brothel, because you could do as many as you liked and didn’t have to pay them. Can such a story be true?”
“I’m afraid it might be.”
“But these are educated Indian women of higher caste. That is not their way at all.”
“Unfortunately, it is the way of the Iraqi soldiers.”
“It is very distressing, sir,” he said sadly.
Yes, it was. One hundred thousand hungry, illiterate soldiers had been turned loose with no discipline in a wealthy, defenseless town. This promised no happy ending.
*
I picked up my passport at the Embassy the next day without trouble. I appreciated their promptness. It was my third passport in six years; I ought to be getting bonus points. Ernest Toyler told me he’d heard word that Saudi Arabia now feared the Iraqi invasion would extend to their northern oil fields, so they had requested American troops. That was a first. Muslim nations had never welcomed an infidel military presence before. It was bound to ignite controversy among Arab nations, but I couldn’t blame the Saudis. Against Saddam’s million-man army his Saudi brothers wouldn’t stand a chance.
Smoke plumes still rose from the city center, though fewer as time went on. During the moments when I wasn’t in either a building or a car I was still hearing gunfire, most of it some distance away from the Hilton. The Iraqis imposed a curfew on the city, seven p.m. to seven a.m. Rumor had it they’d done so because they were meeting armed resistance in the form of night raids. I doubted that a curfew would hinder that. If anything it would abet them by clearing the streets of civilians.
Tuesday’s TV news from Dubai confirmed the Saudi’s request for American troops and reported that George Bush was wasting no time with what they were calling “Desert Shield.” CNN showed Army transport planes taking off from American bases and landing on desert strips. No way to tell whether it was live coverage or stock footage, but either way it portended relief.
Also they reported a U.N. trade embargo against Iraq as long as their army occupied Kuwait. I wondered how that would affect Kuwait. Fresh produce had largely diminished in the restaurant offerings—most of that was imported and the port was shut down—but otherwise the food and service remained pretty much as before.
What the heck, life in the Hilton Hotel wafted on. It was a welcome contrast from the dangers and privations I remembered of post-collapse Phnom Penh.
*
On Thursday morning, CNN reported that Saddam Hussein had announced the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq. The oil fields were absorbed into Basrah, and Kuwait City was to be an additional province. They broadcasted excerpts from President Bush’s address in answer, a forceful statement that it will not stand, that sounded like he meant it.
Christabel, the Filipina maid, intercepted me as I came out of the coffee shop after lunch. “Mr. Fonko, I thought it best to warn you,” she said, much agitated. “Several Iraqi soldiers and two of the Iraqi guests came to your room while I was cleaning it, looking for you. I think they may be there still.”
Shit. If an enemy patrol came probing in the jungle I’d know what to do. But in a five-star hotel? Where do you position the claymores? “What did the soldiers look like?” I asked. “Were they well-dressed, or dirty and rumpled?”
“Very clean. They had nice uniforms and wore red berets.”
Republican Guards. “I guess I’d better stay out of sight until they go away,” I said. “Do you know of someplace I could wait where guests do not go?”
“I think the staff quarters will do. Come with me.” She led me to a stairwell and from there to an unmarked door. Behind it was an extensive but cramped dormitory setup, definitely not five-star. “You can stay in the sitting room,” she said. “I’ll let you know when they’ve gone.”
So I twiddled my thumbs there for an hour or so, watching maids, cleaners, laundrymen, bellhops and busboys bustle in and out. The range of nationalities covered several continents—in addition to Filipinos, also Thais, Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Egyptians and a European or two. Christabel returned and said, “They went away and the soldiers left the building. So if you want to come out, your room is empty now.”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 50