bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2017), pp. 22–23
Immediately following the cessation of hostilities, Ambassador Larry Dickenson and a small team flew back into Kuwait aboard a Department of National Defence (DND) Challenger from Bahrain where they had been based during most of the conflict. The Canadian flag was raised and the Embassy reopened to an emotional welcome from neighbours and friends. Kuwait City, with an original population the size of Ottawa-Gatineau, the Ambassador recounted, was now without water and sewer systems, telephone, electricity, taxis or functioning banks. The civilian airport would not open for another month. Without the continued help of DND, which provided a generator, satellite phone, pallets of bottled water, canned food, and armed body guards, it would have been impossible for the Embassy to function.
Flying in on my return to Kuwait in April 1991, hundreds of oil wells were still burning, black smoke drifting with the prevailing winds. Iraqi troops had tried to delay approaching coalition forces by setting Kuwait’s oil wells on fire. Once defeated and retreating, they set fire to hundreds more, creating an environmental disaster of epic proportions. The airport was in ruins: a British Airways Boeing 747-136, the last to land prior to Iraq’s invasion, lay wrecked on the runway. The passengers from Flight 149, including several Canadians en route to Malaysia from London via Kuwait City, were unable to complete their voyage after landing. Those passengers and crew were taken by Iraqi forces, detained, and later released.
WWlI-era batteries and pillboxes lined the waterfront, and the destroyed villa of the Crown Prince Shaikh Saad leant an air of an abandoned ghost town. Many Kuwaitis had been away for the summer when the Iraqi invasion occurred and had not yet returned. Ironically, the greenery along highway medians, left unattended and un-watered, flourished and grew wildly out onto the Gulf Road.
The air quality in Kuwait was dire for months as the oil fires kept blazing, often turning daylight into darkness, spitting tiny oil drops that soiled clothing and the landscape. There were times when the street lights came on mid-day and it appeared like a London fog. Munitions still lay scattered everywhere and the sulphur smell from the fumes of burning oil added to the sense of Dante’s Inferno.
Close up, the orange flames from the oil wells looked like they were coming out a jet engine. Some wells hissed shooting oil upwards, 75-metres into the air, while purple-black smoke eddied skyward. Oil oozed from the ground and was animated by small flickers of flame like one imagined coming from the lava flows in the final hours of Pompeii. Shortly after I arrived, five people were killed, including two Financial Times journalists, at the Al Ahmadi oilfield when their car, only slightly off the main highway, made contact with a shallow pool of burning oil. They were soon consumed by ground fire and clouds of smoke.
In many ways Kuwait had been dismantled by the Iraqis piece by piece while coalition bombing did the rest. Cars stripped of their hardware and components could be found everywhere. Chassis left like carcasses — engines, tires and trim missing — and of course garbage and bits of ransacked plunder were everywhere. I found a women’s Cartier watch on a road in my old neighbourhood of Bayan.
been run over many times. I picked it up and, years later, had it repaired.
My car, locked in the Embassy compound, had its windshield smashed and the radio ripped out. The villa where I had lived had been taken back by the family that owned it during the conflict and my belongings, moved to another house. The Iraqis had a command post outside, and many of my personal effects had been looted or vandalized — either during or after the invasion. I moved into an apartment left by a colleague that overlooked the Gulf and what was left of a nearby souk that was slowly coming back to life.
Kuwait was a heady mix of munitions and landmines and the specialists who knew how to deal with them. The Iraqis had reportedly buried five to six million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines in the vicinity of the beach, along Kuwait’s southern border with Saudi Arabia, and in northern parts of Kuwait City. Of the hundreds of thousand cluster bombs the allies dropped over Kuwait, it was estimated that 30 percent failed to explode. Foolishly exploring the grounds of an empty villa, I was startled to discover a massive number of crates of munitions, untouched and still stacked in green wooden boxes, stored in the garden.
Upon retreating from Kuwait, the Iraqis had systematically torched or shelled all of the four and five star hotels, resulting in damage reportedly in excess of $US250 million. The Sheraton hotel, where I had gone to recover two Canadians immediately following the invasion, was devastated. What was left of the SAS Hotel lobby was covered in dust and broken furnishings. The elevator doors had melted closed from a fire. The best surprise, the Holiday Inn, had somehow resisted the ravages of war. While fires had been set, the Iraqis had not turned off the water supply so the sprinkler system extinguished the flames.
On a ridge on the outskirts of Kuwait City, on the road from Mutlaa to Basra in Southern Iraq, rest perhaps my most lasting and haunting images of Kuwait and the war. It became known internationally as the “Highway of Death” due to the detritus of war that was everywhere: burned out trucks, tanks, buses and troop carriers of all sorts, and the occasional corpse of a defeated Iraqi soldier abandoned in open body bags among the ruins. To this image add looted broken furniture, tattered clothes, electronic equipment, household goods, auto parts and rubber tires, all bulldozed to the side of the road. Retreating Iraqis had been caught in a massive traffic jam by coalition air strikes where cluster bombs rained down. Munitions still laid everywhere, some unexploded.
More than 300 expatriate experts in oil well blow-outs and oil fires were some of the first to arrive in Kuwait. A team from Safety Boss out of Calgary was prominent among them, using its unique technique: a special powder of potassium bicarbonate hosed onto the oil well to starve the flames of oxygen. Canadians would also take on a post-war peacekeeping role along the Iraq-Kuwait border, monitoring a demilitarized zone, and specialized Canadian troops operating between Kuwait and Iraq would assist in mine clearing operations. Several Canadian naval vessels remained in the region patrolling the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and Red Sea.
Then Foreign Affairs Minister Joe Clark was the first minister from any country to visit Kuwait on 10 March 1991, accompanied by a small business delegation and some media. Ambassador Dickenson had to insist that no one steps off of the pavement or sidewalks due to unexploded landmines.
Kuwait had always been a protectorate in many ways — either Ottoman, British or, more recently, American. It was decided that the United States Army Core of Engineers (USACE) would be the interface with the private sector “managing the recovery program” and the rush for business deals that would follow. The central role of USACE, and links with US firms, helped temper early enthusiasm for quick Canadian commercial results.
Gratitude for Canadian Forces participation in the coalition and diplomatic efforts at the UN was part of every meeting. Highly personal stories of missing family members and torture were frequent. But would such gratitude result in contracts for Canadians?
Former Canadian Ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, was a frequent visitor during June and July 1991, representing Canadian interests focussed on reconstruction of airport terminals and facilities. We made what seemed like daily visits to the Civil Aviation Authority and the office of Kuwait Airways, as the sale of aircraft was also on the agenda.
Part of the job was to brief delegations on the realities of doing business in the ‘new Kuwait’. The old family compacts were soon open for business. Those who had stayed behind during the war had renewed commercial interests and political views on the way forward for Kuwait. Tracking down Ministers was a key challenge in a pre-cell phone period. Also key was getting a letter of intent for various proposed projects. A typical visit included getting through heavy security.
By June, over 200 oil wells had been brought under control while several hundred others kept blazing. Oil oozed from the ground and lay in pools in the desert, animated in some places by small flickers of flame. While Safety Boss led in the total number of wells capped, names like Red Adair, Boots and Coots and Wild Wells Control become household names.
By late July, Kuwait’s hotel rooms had both doors and locks, telephones worked and fax machines were numerous, their use less crowded.
While there were no Canadian civilian or military casualties during the conflict and its aftermath, a number of Canadian Gulf War veterans maintained that illnesses developed post-Kuwait resulted from exposure to chemicals and toxins. This became known as Gulf War Syndrome. The second Gulf War in 2003 left Iraq in tatters and was followed by the execution of Saddam Hussein by hanging on 30 December 2006. The direct aftermath of these wars is still being felt today. Nevertheless, when I flew out of Kuwait in August 1991, my love for the Middle East was undiminished by war and destruction.
Gary Luton is currently Director of the Treaty Law Division. His most recent postings abroad were as Canada’s first resident Ambassador in Doha, Qatar and, prior, as Consul General in Mumbai.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2017), pp. 22–23. Read the rest of this issue →
