Hoping for Peace but Preparing for War
Persian Gulf Nations Stockpile Supplies, Brace for Flood of Refugees From Iraq
URL:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44047-2003Jan11.html
By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 12, 2003; Page A18
KUWAIT CITY, Jan. 11 -- As U.S. forces move toward the Persian Gulf, Iraq's neighbors are hurriedly preparing for war by bolstering stocks of oil and food, setting up refugee camps, conducting emergency drills and stepping up security at key installations.
While their leaders continue to express hope for peace, the nations surrounding Iraq seem increasingly resigned to the likelihood that war is coming, a war that could strain their resources with fleeing Iraqis, tax their economies and threaten them with casualties from missile attacks.
"We are thinking of the worse-case scenario," said Sami Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies, who has been working with the government to manage the potential crisis. "We have not reached the point where we can guarantee the safety of the Kuwaiti population as a whole. . . . The issue for us is: Can we take it? Because it will spill over."
The region's governments have been working with U.S. military officers and international humanitarian groups to cope with the threat of spillover. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, coalition forces stopped after meeting their goal of driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. But a U.S. offensive this time would be aimed at destroying the Iraqi government, which neighboring countries fear could fracture the country along tribal, ethnic or religious lines and spread disorder elsewhere in the region.
For all the risk of instability, emergency planning proceeded only sporadically until recently, but it has stepped up in recent weeks as Washington has appeared more determined to launch military action. With the Bush administration now ordering a doubling of the 60,000 U.S. troops already in the region, strategists here anticipate an attack as early as February and are racing to get ready.
Jordan, which relies on Iraqi oil, has constructed storage facilities to stash a four-week supply in addition to an existing two-month reserve as a hedge against war. The Jordanian government even bought a ship that can hold up to 300,000 tons of oil and docked it at Aqaba on the Red Sea.
Iran has set up 19 camps just yards inside its western border to accommodate as many as 1 million Iraqis fleeing the war. Interior Minister Abdol Vahed Musavi-Lari said at a recent news conference that the Tehran government was determined not to let the Iraqis move farther into the country, noting that Iran already hosts 2.5 million refugees, many from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We do not have the capacity to accept new refugees," he said.
Turkey has also made plans for refugee camps along its border and has shifted military units to block any surge of Kurds who might cross into its territory.
For some countries in the region, preparing for a war they still hope to avert raises delicate political issues. Saudi Arabia, in particular, declines to discuss the need for preparation, and the state-controlled news media often ignore the issue.
"I don't see any preparations," said Osama Nugali, a spokesman for the Saudi Foreign Ministry. "We're not feeling that the war is imminent. We're still hoping there will be no war in the region. We're still hoping it will be resolved peacefully."
Yet privately, according to some journalists and analysts, the ruling family in Riyadh has begun taking at least modest precautions. Sirens not used since Iraqi Scuds were fired on the Saudi capital during the Gulf War have been tested recently, oil facilities have been running emergency drills in case of attack and the government has been planning to handle an influx of refugees at the border.
Analysts said the government is leery of appearing too close to the U.S. war effort. "They don't want to send a message to the public that this is your war, that this is a Saudi war," said Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist based in Jiddah. "Last time we were part of the war. We fought Iraq. This time, we're not fighting."
By contrast, Kuwait, with the most to lose, has been perhaps the most proactive of Iraq's immediate neighbors. Kuwait City, the gleaming capital long since rebuilt from the devastation left by the Iraqi occupation in 1990, sits just an hour's drive from the border, within the 93-mile range of Iraqi missiles permitted under U.N. resolutions.
Kuwait would be the major staging area for U.S. forces invading Iraq from the south. The signs of buildup are unavoidable here, where nearly a quarter of the country has been fenced off as a refuge for U.S. forces practicing for war. While the U.S. military has temporarily restricted media access to its base at Camp Doha, just north of the capital, charter airplanes ferrying in troops can be seen at the airport and military convoys make their way along the highways constantly.
At 10 a.m. Friday, for instance, a 35-vehicle convoy of Humvees and U.S. tanks loaded on flatbed carriers traveled north toward the Iraqi border accompanied by a squadron of Kuwaiti police cars. A few hours later, another group of 10 military vehicles headed in the same direction. Not long after that came a 20-vehicle convoy. Heading in the opposite direction were a few other Humvees with soldiers manning machine guns on top, escorting civilian buses with the curtains drawn.
While relying on U.S. protection, the Kuwaiti government has ordered 2 million gas masks and promised to provide adequate food and shelter in case of war. It is making lists of essential personnel and trying to provide them with equipment to operate in case of a chemical or biological attack. Emergency drills -- with explosions, fake casualties and mass evacuations of office towers -- have become commonplace in Kuwait City. Officials requested a three-month supply of smallpox vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States and have obtained medicine to counter mustard and nerve gases as well as anthrax and cholera.
To protect its economic livelihood against a repeat of 1991, when withdrawing Iraqi troops set oil wells on fire, Kuwait has tightened security at petroleum facilities. And, as in other countries, the government is preparing to set up refugee camps capable of housing 100,000 refugees, probably in the three-mile-wide section of the demilitarized zone on this side of the border to keep them from entering farther into Kuwait.
Perhaps the biggest worry for government planners is how to provide for the country's 1.4 million foreign workers, who outnumber Kuwait's 800,000 native citizens. "Our main concern today is how to address the expatriate community," said Faraj, who is trying to plan for everything from hiring interpreters to making sure non-Arab mosques and Christian churches spread the word about emergency plans.
In the same spirit, the Philippine government this week sent a "Presidential Middle East Preparedness Team" here to work out plans to rescue the workers who tend Kuwaiti houses, drive the taxi cabs, work the cash registers and are generally indispensable to the country's economy. The leader of the Philippine team, Gen. Roy Cimatu, told reporters his government is prepared to evacuate all 1.4 million Filipinos working in Kuwait and elsewhere in the region if necessary.
Crisis managers acknowledge they are ill prepared for what could come. Under "Project Countdown," the emergency plan developed by Faraj's group, Kuwait should be ready only by Feb. 21, and that might be optimistic. "To say the least, we are not ready," Faraj said.
© 2003 The Washington Post |
