KUWAIT CITY -- The last time Jamal al-Attar's sisters saw him, he was in jail, naked and blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back. Twelve years later, his family has lost hope of ever learning his fate at the hands of Saddam Hussein's forces.

"For 12 years now we have been waiting. For what?" al-Attar's father, Abdul Hameed al-Attar, says bitterly. "We have to get rid of this regime."

Kuwait says 600 people were taken during Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of this tiny, oil-rich nation. Iraq was required to return them or account for them under U.N. resolutions that ended the Gulf War, but hasn't complied.

As U.S. and British troops pour into Kuwait, relatives of the missing are pinning their last hopes on another U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to finally find out what became of them.

Jamal al-Attar, an engineer for Kuwait television, went into hiding the same day Iraqi troops marched into the country on Aug. 2, 1990. Six weeks later, his father received a call from a relative saying the 26-year-old had been arrested.

Abdul Hameed al-Attar says he rushed to the police station with his two young daughters, demanding to see his son. Iraqi officials insisted he wasn't there, but the younger al-Attar heard the argument and called out to his father.

The two girls, waiting outside the station, peered through the window from which they heard their brother's cries and saw him tied up on a table, al-Attar says.

But when they rushed back to tell their father, he says, an Iraqi official pulled out his gun and shot at their feet, warning the next bullet would be aimed at their heads.

By the time al-Attar had bundled his daughters home and returned to the station, his son was gone. He never found out what happened to him.

"During the occupation, I paid tens of thousands of Iraqi dinars (tens of dollars) for information," says al-Attar, an official with the government's Committee for Missing and Prisoners of War Affairs. "They took the money, but didn't give me anything."

Through the years, he says, Kuwaiti officials have met 59 times with their Iraqi counterparts to try to secure the release of war prisoners. Each time, they walked away empty handed.

Iraq insists it has no detainees and accuses Kuwait of holding more than 1,000 of its people, who disappeared during the war. Kuwait says it cannot be held responsible for those who disappeared during the seven-month occupation.

The last round of talks by an international committee looking into the issue ended in February with the Kuwaiti delegate accusing Iraq of failing to cooperate.

Since U.S.-led forces liberated Kuwait, there have been occasional reports from ex-convicts in Iraq, who said they saw -- and sometimes spoke to -- Kuwaiti war prisoners. But the last reports were several years ago, raising doubts about how many could have survived in Iraq's notorious prisons.

For many families, the final blow came in October, when Saddam opened jail doors to political prisoners -- but no Kuwaitis came home.

"Now, Kuwaitis are ready to accept it, if they are dead. Just tell us," says al-Attar. "Give us information."

Many believe they will only get answers if Saddam is ousted by U.S. and British troops gathering here for a possible war to force Iraq to dismantle weapons programs banned by the United Nations. Iraq insists it has no such weapons programs.

"The way they are searching for weapons of mass destruction, why don't they search for the POWs?" wails Shagha Falah, who keeps a tiny photograph of her missing son under her enveloping, black veil. At 19, he was arrested on suspicion of spying against Iraq.

Unsure whether their loved ones are dead or alive, POW families say the passing years have done little to dull their anguish.

Fadila al-Obaid still hides cherished pictures of her husband from his three children. "Every time they see them, they cry," she says, burying her face in the folds of her veil.

Her eldest daughter, 19-year-old Mashaa'l Sherif, was the last person in the family to speak to the defense ministry official before he was caught trying to flee the country.

Before he drove off, she ran up to his car and pleaded with him to stay. He kissed her, but insisted he had to go.

"I miss my father so much," she says. "We are all just waiting for the war."