Kuwait's Rise From Ashes

Kuwait suffered a great deal during the 1990 Iraqi invasion. Homes and businesses were looted, and people disappeared. The government spent more than $150 billion restoring the oil fields ignited by the Iraqis. But while the physical wounds have been erased, the emotional scars remain.

It is the images of 700 burning oil wells that most people remember.

Today, charred skeletons litter the desert, reports CBS News Correspondent Thalia Assuras. But, tiny new flames from production facilities declare that the country's oil is flowing again.

"I think we did miracles. Really, in producing back the oil in a very short period of time," says Kuwait Oil Company Chairman Ahmed Al Arbeed.

For Kahlid Sultan, who runs several businesses, including construction and pipeline maintenance firms, rebuilding has not been easy.

"Equipment was stolen, some of it destroyed or looted," says Sultan.

And his 550 employees scattered. Today, contracting projects resulting from the country's reconstruction have helped boost his workforce to more than 1,000 people.

Still, not all has returned to normal. Sultan has recouped monetary losses, But he has lost a dream — three years and several million dollars spent designing profitable agriculture projects. Today, the only land he tends is around his summer home. And it's for pleasure, not business.

During Iraq's occupation, Kuwaitis lived off oil revenue savings. For years the government deposited 10 percent of all oil revenues into a fund for the day when the oil runs out. They dipped into that money to support Kuwaitis living in exile and to pay some of the costs of the allied war effort. The fund was believed to be at about $100 billion before the invasion. Now, it's about half that much.

"We have survived but the attitude has changed," says project manager Randa Anabtawi.

He says the invasion shook the nation's complacency. Kuwaitis no longer take life for granted.

"We used to be a much more consumer society before the invasion, if you can believe that," says Anabtawi. "We have a lot more value for life in general because you know that could change at any moment."

He says there has been an upsurge of religious fundamentalism since the invasion.

"They turned towards something and that something is religion," says Anabtawi. "You know, you've got to have something to hold on to."

For many here, the rise in Islamic fundamentalism is alarming. A phenomenon that may explain attacks like the one two weeks ago, in which one American was killed and another wounded when their car was fired upon outside Kuwait City.

There is also percolating anti-American sentiment. Most of it is tied to the United States' support for Israel in its conflict with Palestinians.

They wish the United States would choose a different role, at least a neutral role.

Naser Al Sane, a member of parliament who believes Kuwait should be an Islamic state, says Kuwaitis are torn between gratitude to the U.S. for its role in liberating Kuwait and anger at its stance on Israel.

"Most here argue that only a tiny minority of Kuwaitis have turned to extremism." says Sane. "Kuwait, already the most democratic of all the Arabic countries, has become more open and western-leaning over the last dozen years."

Thalia Assuras and CBS News were invited to tea with a group of women — mothers and daughters.

Family life and their place in it, has changed for the women. They express that they have become more open in society.

"Before the invasion, Kuwait had very much of a segregated society," says Anabtaw. "Now men make it a point … women make it a point to live together as a family, to do things together as a family. This was not there before the invasion."

Many families were torn apart during the Iraqi invasion. More than 600 prisoners of war, labeled the "605," are still missing and unaccounted.

One mother of a young man, taken at age 19, has been unable to locate her son, despite traveling to Baghdad prisons twice to look for him. But she waits and hopes.

She is one of many whose physical scars have been erased, but emotional scars remains.