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Salem presided over a network that distributed nearly $100 million, smuggled into Kuwait from the exiled government in Taif, Saudi Arabia. "We used the money for bribes to get people out of jail, to pass checkpoints, to buy fruits and vegetables brought from Iraq," says Salem. "This is the Middle East, and money talked even more here because the Iraqis are so poor."
Kuwait's leaders can be blamed for much of the current chaos. Like all governments, Kuwait's is sometimes savvy, sometimes incompetent. But at the top, and with a few notable exceptions, Kuwait's Cabinet is decidedly mediocre -- an opinion shared by most Kuwaitis. The government's primary mission for seven months has been to plan its return. The ministers began well by removing themselves from direct responsibility. A reconstruction plan was concocted in Washington by Fawzi al-Sultan, an executive director of the World Bank, who assembled a team of international experts.
But as the war of liberation neared, the ministers in Taif became jealous of an organization that threatened to supplant them. In short order, al-Sultan's team was torpedoed. Each ministry recaptured control of its own work, coordination evaporated, and the resistance movement, which knew what was needed and how to accomplish it, was effectively shut out.
The results of mismanagement are everywhere. Supplies of essential foodstuffs, supposedly stockpiled and ready to go in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, were delayed at the border because Kuwait's Interior Ministry had failed to provide proper documentation. Some of the stocks spoiled. When a shipment finally arrived in Kuwait City late last week, five days behind schedule, the Commerce Ministry's distribution plan had to be scrapped because it could not do the job quickly. Some of the needed food was distributed by U.S. Ambassador Gnehm. "He had the media with him," says a Kuwaiti minister admiringly. "He wanted to embarrass us into moving faster, and it worked." But the shipments still lag. "Quite literally," says Ali Salem, "we had more in the stores when Saddam controlled Kuwait."
The oil industry, Kuwait's backbone, is in even worse shape. Rashid al- Amiri, the Oil Minister, is roundly denounced by his colleagues. A committee of other ministers was appointed last Thursday to "assist" him. "What is unforgivable," says one of al-Amiri's associates, "is that he is in no small measure directly responsible for much of the havoc we face."
Some months ago, Kuwaiti operatives trained by Western intelligence agencies successfully sabotaged Iraq's plan to cripple Kuwait's oil-producing centers. The wires leading to explosive charges buried in the sand were snipped and reburied. Al-Amiri was so delighted that he bragged about it in an interview he gave to an Arab newspaper. Whether the Iraqis would have checked the wires in any event may never be known, but Kuwait says it is now losing 6 million bbl. a day from the 600-odd wells ablaze.