A Kuwaiti refugee stands beside his car outside Kuwait City after Iraq invaded 25 years ago. Scott Applewhite / AP
A Kuwaiti refugee stands beside his car outside Kuwait City after Iraq invaded 25 years ago. Scott Applewhite / AP

Wet towels were our best defence against Saddam



In 1990, I remember Saudi TV channels broadcasting all sorts of precautionary tips to ward off attacks by the then president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. One proclaimed that “wet towels” could save lives in the event of an onslaught of chemical weapons.

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, sending ripples of fear, anger, confusion and anxiety across the Arab world.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the invasion and it remains a painful memory. During the seven-month occupation and conflict, hundreds of people were killed. Thousands more were imprisoned and tortured.

I was a child at the time and remember the war for shorter school days, less homework and strange drill practices.

We were taught what each siren wail meant and where to hide. We duct-taped all the classroom windows and stuck plastic bags over them to be extra safe. And there were towels and bottled water sitting in the corner “just in case”.

There was a craze for buying gas masks. But there were also rumours of families suffocating as they didn’t know how to use them properly. To say it was a time of panic is an understatement.

I was living with my family in Jeddah and we were told we could be “hit at any time”. Families were taking extra precautions like stuffing their supermarket trolleys with non-perishable goods.

There were often food shortages and you would see mothers arguing in the markets, accusing each other of “leaving nothing for other families”. Water, generators, medicine and duct-tape were all in demand.

We took an extra interest in maps and where our borders were. CNN was the channel we all watched.

We got to know who the Iraqis were in our neighbourhood and in the classroom – what nationality you were suddenly mattered and, especially, whose side you were on.

We feared the “Skood” most, which were actually the Scud missiles that Saddam had launched against Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Besides the fears, it was also a time of generosity, and a moment when we all opened our homes to those fleeing the war.

There were many Kuwaitis who moved into our compound and many homes elsewhere in the Gulf opened up too. Our school composed a song for Kuwait and we wore “Free Kuwait” T-shirts. I remember the words were printed in fluorescent pink and yellow and the T-shirts were black.

To be honest, as children, we didn’t understand much of what was going on, but we could see our parents were worried.

We could hear the adults talking about how “everything will change now” and that somehow this war was a “loss of innocence”.

There has always been some kind of war in the Middle East. But more often than not it happened “over there” in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and even Jordan, and it was against Israel.

There had always been skirmishes of discontent, but for a brother Arab nation to launch a fully fledged attack and invasion against another Arab country, this was the first in modern history.

The Arab world would be a different place now if Saddam had stepped down either in 1991 or before the US-led invasion in 2003.

“What affects Iraq adversely affects the Islamic and Arab nation and vice versa,” said Sheikh Zayed, the late President of the UAE, back in October 2002.

And true enough, we are still living the consequences of what happened all those years ago.

rghazal@thenational.ae

On Twitter: @Arabianmau

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