(FORTUNE Magazine) – An international horde of would-be fixers is hoping to gain admission to Kuwait to grab pieces of the cleanup too paltry for the likes of AT&T, Bechtel Group, and Dresser Industries. While the big guys line up the fat-dollar contracts to repair the phone service and get the oil moving, entrepreneurs are besieging Kuwaiti embassies around the world for permission to set up shop and catch some crumbs.

What chance does the little guy have? The advantage goes to those who were already in adjacent Saudi Arabia with a good set of skills. The Americans among them include: -- Dallas native Herschell H. Hargus, 51. As a U.S. Army major in the 1970s, he taught ordnance to Saudi soldiers. He set up a phone system for an industrial complex in Saudi Arabia some years later, operated an Arkansas flying school, and, back in Saudi Arabia again, converted 54 Toyota pickups into fighting vehicles for U.S. Special Forces. Now Hargus has his eye on the T-72 tanks and thousands of tons of other scrap metal that the routed Iraqi army left behind and which he could sell. Says he: ''Somebody's going to make a fortune out of that wreckage, and it might as well be me.'' -- Bill Heilmann, 33, a former Los Angeles headhunter. He changed careers and arrived in Dhahran to scout for business opportunities for a Middle Eastern emigre at about the same time the U.S. military landed. He made a cold sales call to a tent of U.S. Army procurers and got a $3.8 million contract to provide ice to as many as 125,000 soldiers for six months. The two local ice factories could make only 100,000 pounds a day, just 20% of what he needed. He found the rest 200 miles away in Riyadh, along with refrigerated trucks to haul it. Heilmann parlayed that success into military contracts for leasing generators and laptop computers and selling tampons. With references in hand, he is eager to move on to Kuwait to provide whatever new customers may want. -- Patrick F. Mahoney, 47, once a crew chief on a C-141 transport plane in Vietnam. He was a sheriff's deputy in Pasco County, Florida, before he arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1983 to train the bomb-disposal squad at Riyadh International Airport. Since then he has counseled Saudis and expatriates on handling bomb threats and the taking of hostages. He believes that the Kuwaitis could use his advice on counterterrorism. Says he: ''The military thinks that once the flag is planted, the war is over. But this is just a hiatus. Very shortly we will see a wave of terrorist attacks all over.'' For foreigners who don't already have a foothold in the Middle East or a tie with a general contractor like Bechtel, the chances of making money in Kuwait seem slim. For one thing, even big engineering and construction companies that rarely bid on jobs worth less than $20 million have taken on piddling emergency assignments in Kuwait as a way to gain entry to the country and scout for bigger projects. Excluding the estimated $10 billion needed to get Kuwait's oil industry back to normal, the money the country will have to spend on construction could run to little more than $20 billion, according to Kidder Peabody engineering analyst Richard Sweetnam. Damage to Kuwait City seems relatively light. Said a U.S. Army colonel who arrived with the first wave of liberators: ''I expected Beirut and found the South Bronx.''