KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 27— On the third floor of a gutted mansion, a Kuwaiti Army major slowly pushed open a door with his foot to what was once a laundry room. It had been converted by the Iraqis, he said, into a torture chamber. In one corner were metal box springs, raised off the floor by chairs. Next to the springs was a crude brown box with bare electrical wires protruding from black cords. "They put the prisoners on the springs, poured water over them and then applied the current," said the Kuwaiti Army officer, Maj. Jamal al-Hassan, who was a leader in the underground during the occupation. "If they were not happy with the answers, they turned up the voltage." Kuwaitis who were picked up by the Iraqi secret police had their own stories to tell. "They beat me, did not let me sleep and made me sit naked on a bottle of hot sauce," said 21-year-old Faisal al-Anizi. "This went on for three days in what used to be the reform school." Others tell of being rubbed down with sandpaper, having their heads thrust into cold water and being hung by their hands from a hook.

When an American correspondent arrived in Kuwait City on Tuesday, ahead of entering allied troops, he found Kuwaitis who were eager to tell the world that Saddam Hussein brought more to Kuwait than Iraqi license plates and innumerable self-portraits. Mr. Hussein had also brought the techniques of control that have kept his authoritarian Government in power. Members of the Kuwaiti underground, acting on information provided by people who said they were taken and tortured by the Iraqi secret police, have identified various places where Kuwaitis were questioned, beaten and tortured. A visitor is overwhelmed by reports that hundreds, perhaps thousands of young men were taken by the Iraqis, many in the final hours before the Iraqi forces left the city on Monday. Their parents and friends fear that they may not reappear. "A lot of people have disappeared in Iraq and never been seen since," said Raid al-Moussa. "My son is missing, and I worry he may never come back." Several of the places that people here suspected of being torture centers, such as those believed to have been set up in the Meridien Hotel and the central police station, were burned by departing Iraqi troops.

In that police station, one room had been set ablaze. Today, the remains of the furniture, charred among blackened metal box springs, were still smoking. "This was one of the central rooms," said Ahmed Othman, a Kuwaiti underground fighter, who appeared after the Iraqis left. Blenko Warehouse Sale 2014Standing in front of the blackened walls with a .38-caliber pistol tucked into the waist of his gray sweatsuit, he said: "They tried to destroy as much evidence as possible before they left."Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner Spray Bottle The Kuwaitis said they also believe that women were held prisoner and tortured in the Meridien Hotel, which was shelled by a tank and burned before Iraqi troops made a hasty retreat from the city.Pressure Washer Repair Shelby Nc

Kuwaitis who fought against the Iraqis, wearing red armbands as they patrol roadblocks and ferret out Iraqi soldiers who remain hidden in the city, are also going through houses confiscated by Iraqi troops. "They used these private homes to carry out their worst interrogations and torture," Mr. Othman said. Disappearance of Young Men One of the subjects frequently raised with the American correspondent, was the disappearances of Kuwaitis, mostly young men, after being picked up by the Iraqi police. In a few cases, families with money were told that their loved ones would be returned for ransoms. "The Iraqis came and told me they had my brother," said Abdul Hamid, a retired civil aviation official. "They said we could have him back for 5,000 Iraqi dinar and a car. We paid them and he came back." But others said they had spent fruitless hours going to and from police stations to seek information. Finally, the Grim News A few said the Iraqis finally, after much pleading, informed them that their relatives were dead.

"After three months of going nearly every week to the Iraqi police, they told us that my cousin had died in Iraq," a woman said. She asked that her name not be used since family members abroad did not know of her cousin's death. "We do not know how he died and we never received his body," she said. Some Kuwaitis said that Palestinians, foreign workers in Kuwait, had aided the Iraqi police after the invasion in August. "The Iraqis gave arms to some Palestinians," Major Hassan said. "These Palestinians, many of whom had lived here for a long time, were very useful to the Iraqis. They knew where people lived and who was influential. We have not found any of these Palestinians. They may have left with the soldiers." Hospital Atrocity Stories Wrong Some of the atrocities that had been reported, such as the killing of infants in the main hospitals shortly after the invasion, are untrue or have been exaggerated, Kuwaitis said. Hospital officials, for instance, said that stories circulated about the killing of 300 children were incorrect.

Rumors circulated around Kuwait City in the immediate hours after the Iraqi withdrawal about young girls being hung with wire until they were dead and children being shot, but none of these stories could be substantiated today. There is increasing evidence, however, that those Kuwaitis considered opponents of the Iraqi occupation were selected for very rough treatment. Families suspected of aiding the opposition movement or having members in the underground say they were frequently visited during the night by Iraqi policemen. "The Iraqis burst into my house late at night," said Taiba al-Ayar. "They flipped over our beds and dragged my son-in-law away in his pajamas. He has not returned." "Just after the invasion, the members in my resistance section had five satellite phones," Mr. Othman said. "After a few weeks, those members who had the phones were all taken by the Iraqis. I began to sleep in a different place every night and carried a gun in case they came for me."