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- <text id=91TT0597>
- <title>
- Mar. 18, 1991: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Mar. 18, 1991 A Moment To Savor
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 16
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Since Iraq's T-72 tanks rolled into Kuwait seven months ago,
- special correspondent Michael Kramer has flown to Saudi Arabia
- on five separate occasions to report on the war. During each
- trip, he made sure to go to the mountainous resort of Taif to
- visit with Kuwait's ruling family and the government in exile.
- In his story this week, Kramer shares his unique perspective
- on the Kuwaitis and tells what he found when he entered the
- ransacked shell of Kuwait City with six Kuwaiti ministers.
- </p>
- <p> "Nothing is working well," says Mike. "The roads are chewed
- up by allied bombs and clogged with military convoys. On the
- way from Saudi Arabia we passed trucks carrying bottled water
- and satellite dishes for telephones; they didn't arrive for
- days. In Kuwait City the ministers set up their headquarters
- in the Armed Forces Hospital, and four days later they
- discovered an Iraqi soldier who had been hiding in a bathroom
- there."
- </p>
- <p> Joining reporter Lara Marlowe and photographer Rudi Frey at
- TIME's outpost in the formerly luxe Kuwait International Hotel,
- Kramer found there was no electricity and little hot food, and
- that water ran only twice a day for brief periods. Besides
- food, one of the most important commodities in Kuwait City
- right now is spare tires. "People steal them, and with no
- electricity there's no way to repair them," says Kramer. "There
- are so many sharp pieces of metal on the road that a trip to
- the border is considered--at a minimum--a `three-spare'
- trip."
- </p>
- <p> Mike, who has covered wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and
- Beirut, finds himself treading lightly in Kuwait. British
- troops disarmed a booby-trapped doorway at an amusement park
- he went to visit. Later he was detained for four hours by a
- young Kuwaiti soldier who didn't understand his ID papers.
- "Things can get a little tense, and you have to watch
- yourself," he said. "The soldiers at the checkpoints get shot
- at almost every night. You never go out alone."
- </p>
- <p> Although they often had horrible stories to tell, many
- Kuwaitis were enthusiastic about sharing their thoughts and
- experiences with Kramer. "We journalists," he said, "are
- considered liberators as much as the troops are."
- </p>
- <p>-- Robert L. Miller
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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