Judy Schriener reflects on a trip to Kuwait in 1991 to report on oil fires and planned Gulf War reconstruction.
After the first Gulf War in early 1991, when Iraq invaded and destroyed much of Kuwait, I was fortunate enough to travel to Kuwait to cover efforts to rebuild infrastructure and buildings, and to extinguish the numerous oil fires. I think I was the only female journalist who traveled there alone.
At the time, the only way to get to Kuwait was to collect our visas in person in Saudi Arabia, where women were very restricted in many ways. They were not easy logistics.
I had a lot of help from the many American construction and design companies already working in the area. They shared information, gave me names of their people on the ground there, and volunteered to help in any way they could. I felt ready and excited to go.
In Kuwait, I would need a car and there were none available for rent in Kuwait, so I would have to bring one from Saudi Arabia. Women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so we arranged two cars and two drivers to take me to the border, and then I would take the car and my driver would go back with the second driver.
My journey as a solo woman created several more challenges for me. When I arrived in Riyadh, a guard approached me and wanted to know who my sponsor was. I said I wasn’t sure. He asked me if someone was picking me up and I said yes. He told me to leave my carry-on and bag and follow him to find this person. Fortunately, even though we were almost two hours late, there was someone from one of the contractors with my name on a sign. The two men spoke in Arabic for a minute and then allowed me to go back in, take my bags and continue to Customs. In the crazy long lines I met a couple of Americans who turned out to be frequent visitors doing business there. They welcomed me and gave me many useful tips.
When I arrived at the hotel, I checked in and went to my room. Shortly after, I got a call from the front desk asking me to come down. Why? The police wanted to talk to me “just for five minutes,” he said. I had seen a man deliver me and they wanted more information. I started calling: ENR, Senator John McCain’s office where I had a contact, the US contractors who had been helping me. They all started faxing me to the hotel, asking me to be treated well and stressing that I had the right journalist visa to travel and so on. The faxes started to appear and the staff put them under my door. I knew the person who called me had read them. I finally got off, asked who wanted to talk to me and was told to wait. I waited about 15 minutes and went back to my room. No one called back.
The next morning I went to the office of the Ministry of Information and they wrote some kind of memo to teach people. I showed it to the front desk person and from then on I was treated like royalty. I took a tour of the hotel, including a rooftop area where people were sunbathing in bikinis and drinking alcohol. I was surprised! My guide said, “This isn’t for everyone,” and invited me to come back and order whatever I wanted. I passed this on.
The next night one of the guys I met in the Customs line took me out to dinner and then a spontaneous tour of the city. I had brought a hijab head cover, but hadn’t taken it off since we were having dinner at the hotel, so I was bare-headed when we went to the souk (mall). We were almost done when two armed morality police stopped us and told my companion that he would have to take me away because my head was not covered. They escorted us out.
My next stop to get my visa was in Dhahran. A newspaper professional friend from Arizona who had traveled to Kuwait a month earlier had told me to look up a Saudi colonel whose name eluded me after 33 years. I saw him in the room where we all went to wait for our visas and I walked up to him and excitedly said, “Colonel (whatever)! My friend (So-and-so) said to say hi!” That was a very good move. He invited me to go to Kuwait the next day with the Royal Saudi Air Force in a C-130. Yes!
We canceled both cars and drivers. I was the only American on the plane and we were joined by two Brits who were there looking for work in Kuwait. The air force officers and his wife were polite and calm. I was very moved to see five sexist officers take turns gently fanning the awkward woman as she lay there with her head on her husband’s lap. It was quite an experience.
Finally, in Kuwait
It was May and hot, over 100°F in Kuwait, as it was in Phoenix, where I had lived for 10 years before moving to New York for ENR. On the bus from the airport to the Kuwait International Hotel, I was excited. Then I saw a design on one of the overpasses that reminded me of something similar in Phoenix, and I fell short. What if my city had been attacked like Kuwait? That serious moment changed my entire approach to my trip and how I covered the rebuilding efforts.
There were challenges in such a devastated area. The phone lines were dead. There were a few centers where we could go and queue to use a working phone, but they didn’t always work. Since I had flown, I had no car. But a kind soul offered me one, a not-new Toyota, which was someone’s private car, so I rented it. (All I had to hand over for expenses to ENR was a scribble on an envelope, so I was grateful to be reimbursed.) I drove all over Kuwait for the next two and a half weeks, getting lost again and again and I loved the freedom it gave me.
The damage in Kuwait extended beyond oil field fires to bombed-out ruins and the extensive appearance of damaged buildings.Photos courtesy of Judy Schreiner
Almost everything was closed or only partially functional. We had fresh water for showering and were thankful for that. Bombed roads were everywhere and lights were scarce at night. My hotel was in very good shape and had plenty of excellent food for us. Everyone I met asked me with a look of pity if I had found food. We celebrated! It’s where I discovered that I loved hummus and other Middle Eastern dishes, not so much the slush-like coffee served when I visited the offices. But it is offered and you drink it.
I learned a lot, like when you see a woman, don’t compliment her on her scarf, because she’ll feel compelled to give it to you. This was not a problem; many Kuwaitis had left the area during reconstruction, so there were few women.
No rules, no problem
With almost no working phones, there were no rules. We just introduced ourselves and met with everyone. My hotel was full of construction people and we all met for dinner, stories and updates every night. There were usually a couple of Kuwaitis joining us.
I met everyone I wanted to, and they were all great to me! The key was the people in the Corps of Engineers, especially Col. Ralph Locurcio, Capt. Robert Irby, and Lt. Col. Doug Coffey, the latter of whom took me to various locations, including the mostly nonfunctional airport, and they called me stop backing up while taking photos. Unexploded ordnance was buried everywhere, out of sight, and I didn’t want to get killed.
The American and British corps and contractors were so good to me; they made my two and a half week trip a success.
Here are a few: Brown & Root’s purchasing officer let me shadow him for two days on his rounds to find scarce supplies. The people at Turner Corp. and JA Jones took me to the palaces, hotels, mosques and other buildings where they were working. The head of Blunt Inc. it was useful for the electrical angle. IMO Corp. he showed me the health systems that had a two year contract to repair and maintain. Yes, there was a stench, really all over the city, as well as a gross, pervasive smog. I’ve mostly gotten used to both.
Damage to government buildings was extensive in Kuwait at the end of the conflictPhoto courtesy of Judy Schreiner
A big advantage of having no rules due to the lack of working phone lines was that I had easy access to several important Kuwaiti players, including Talal Al-Othman, who was in charge of rebuilding the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) of Kuwait and Ali Al-Abdullah, Chief Engineer of MPW. Talal was especially popular because he was known as “the radio guy” for always having a two-way radio handy. Nassar Mohamed Kharafi’s Kuwait Food Company owned 110 fast food restaurants, and he was also the chairman of the Kharafi contractor company and would rebuild them himself. I popped into his company on my way out of town and he invited me into his leopard-decorated office. I asked him why he was doing that and he said, “Because you’re American.” Most of the Kuwaitis I met were very grateful for our help.
I only met two women who worked in Kuwait. Fatima Al-Sabah was a sheikh, member of the Kuwaiti royal family and head of MPW’s architecture department. Donna Sultan was an American who was married to the owner of the Kuwait Bureau of Engineers and was an executive in the company. Both interacted significantly with the foreigners who were there to help rebuild their country.
Everyone spoke excellent English and most had spent time in the US at university, working or both. His sing-song English was infectious and I found myself speaking like that more than once.
The only person I couldn’t find in Kuwait was Terry Farley, who ran Kuwait operations for Bechtel Corp.’s efforts. to help put out the many oil fires. He didn’t want to be found and made that clear to my Bechtel contacts in the US who are usually very helpful and were of no help.
But I was determined and extended the journey three days to continue until I found him. He trusted me with useful information, although he did not want to be named. I was glad I found it because after I wrote another article about Bechtel’s firefighting success—thanks to a group of renegades who came forward with an FPO novel ( fire putter-outer)— we gave him ENR’s highest honor that year, at the time called Man of the Year, later changed to Award of Excellence. To write this story, I got to accompany Terry to Kuwait in January 1992. The country was in much better shape then, with more rules and women in place. Terry and I met several times for pizza over the years in the States and are still in touch today.
As a final treat, I flew out of Kuwait in another C-130, this time with the US Air Force!
Covering the reconstruction of Kuwait and arriving there twice were life-changing experiences for which I will always be grateful.
