Word: businessmen
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...weeks after liberation, PVE vice president Michael Taylor joined scores of other foreign businessmen at the ransacked Kuwait International Hotel. PVE was ready to move immediately, but Kuwait was not. The Saudi intermediary, it seems, lacked sufficient clout. Five months later, a network of agents is finally in place, and a contract should be signed soon. But the delay -- and the need to pay astronomical agency fees -- has pushed the estimated cost of the two-year project to approximately $1.2 billion. "More than $100 million of that will go to the agents," says an aide to the Prime Minister...
...seriously in the 1950s, the Sabahs were suddenly the wealthiest of all, and the power relationships inverted. A succession of farsighted emirs distributed billions of dollars to the populace, and Sabah-generated patronage is still central to the family's power. "These days," says a Kuwaiti minister, "the smart businessmen come to me and my colleagues, and we direct them to agents. No decisions are more important than who gets to share the pie. Those who charge corruption are the ones who feel left out -- and those who bitch loudest are usually calmed by our sending agency commissions their...
...exception of automobile dealers, who are thriving as Kuwaitis rush to replace more than a quarter-million stolen or trashed cars, most Kuwaiti businesses were moribund even before the Prime Minister spoke. Uncertain about the size of the postliberation population until the de facto deportation policy runs its course, businessmen are leery of replacing lost inventory. The government's inexplicable failure to set a reasonable compensation policy for goods lost during the occupation has aided stagnation as well. Most businessmen are also waiting to see whether the Emir will trump his consumer-debt order by similarly forgiving commercial loans...
...terror tactics," including kidnapping and blackmail. "The Pakistanis were easy to terrorize; perhaps we might send someone his brother's hand with the rings still on it." Adds Mustafa: "We were after business cooperation or military or industrial secrets that we would use or broker, and we targeted generals, businessmen and politicians. In America it was easy: money almost always worked, and we sought out politicians known to be corruptible...
...Businessmen who pursued shady deals with B.C.C.I. are just as frightened. "Look," says an arms dealer, "these people work hand in hand with the drug cartels; they can have anybody killed. I personally know one fellow who got crossed up with B.C.C.I., and he is a cripple now. A bunch of thugs beat him nearly to death, and he knows who ordered it and why. He's not about to talk." Currently the black units have focused their scrutiny and intimidation on investigators. "Our own people have been staked out or followed, and we suspect tapped telephones," says...