The sirens sounded again around 5 a.m.... and I slept right through them!! Everybody was buzzing about them at work, but nobody has any idea what happened. A few days ago, a BBC reporter expressed his amazement at how nonchalant everybody in Kuwait has been regarding the danger of a chemical bomb attack. While journalists run to the shelters with their gas masks, Kuwaitis watch with bemusement and just shrug off the danger. It's a mix of laziness, fatalism and simply not understanding the seriousness of it all.

Or it could be sheer confidence that nothing bad will happen to us... A good friend asked me the other day if I had gas masks at home for my family, and I lied and said "yes" because I thought it was the right thing to say. She stunned me by saying she didn't have any... and her dad is ex-Minister of Defense!! I felt like an idiot.. (that happens a lot...my feeling like an idiot, that is). For me, the fact that I was here for the war in 1991 when no chemicals were fired our way is probably why I felt no need to take precautions. I'm sure all of you reading outside Kuwait are flipping out, but now that coalition forces have pracitically taken over southern Iraq, we should be safe.