Foreigners stay in Kuwait despite warnings to go

The Associated Press

KUWAIT CITY -- First, the Canadian government advised all its citizens to leave Kuwait. Then the U.S. Embassy followed suit. On Wednesday, the British government told its citizens to clear out and began plans to evacuate the spouses and children of embassy officials.

Yet Westerners continue to sip their coffee at Starbucks here and nonchalantly shop at the new Virgin Megastore -- less than 60 miles from the Iraqi border.

Many feel the border is well fortified and that any Scud missiles Saddam Hussein might possess would not be aimed their way.

Some were shaken -- but not enough to leave -- by three recent attacks against Americans that killed one Marine and one businessman and wounded another Marine, two soldiers and a second businessman.

The British Foreign Office issued a warning Wednesday advising "nonessential" workers among the 4,500 British citizens in Kuwait to leave the country because of the regional tensions and threats of terror attacks.

There was no mad rush to the airport, and even British Embassy officials said there was no sense of urgency and did not expect people to leave for a week to 10 days after the warning.

"One has to define the word nonessential, and of course that means different things to different people," said Graham Hawkins, principal of the British School here.

Hawkins met with his 130 British staff after the advisory was issued and told them they were free to leave if they wished. The vast majority decided to stay and the school, which caters to the children of foreign workers, will remain open, he said.

Though some of his Western students are leaving, most of his students, from countries as far afield as India and Lebanon, remain, he said.

"The only thing that really worries some people here right now is the possibility of civil disturbance or the possibility of some extremist doing terrorist activity. But that's possible at any place in the world at the moment," he said.

The American School of Kuwait and the American International School, however, closed two weeks ago until March 22 so teachers who wanted to leave could do so.

That decision threw many families into disarray.

Willett doubts the school will reopen and sent his son, a high school senior, to Louisiana so he could finish his education and be ready to start college later this year. His wife left, too.

"As long as the school stayed open we would have stayed, because our goal was to get our son graduated, and my wife felt perfectly safe here," he said.

For many Westerners, just as it has for many Kuwaitis, life has continued as normal.

"I'm not going to put my life on hold and wait and see what happens. It could happen in a week, it could happen in a month," said Nancy Habbas, who volunteers as a "warden," passing on embassy alerts to other Americans. "As far as my husband and I are concerned, we still feel safe with the situation in Kuwait."

Most people will not leave until the last possible moment, Hawkins said.

"A lot of people have been here many years and know Kuwait quite well," Hawkins said. "We don't just up sticks and off at the drop of a hat. We take our responsibilities very seriously here ... We would not leave unless it was absolutely and finally necessary to do."