from Adel Darwish in Kuwait

26 February 2001

American and Kuwaiti Armour held special manoeuvres yesterday in Kuwaiti Desert, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Liberation of Kuwait by a United States lead international force.

The skies were clear, unlike the scene 10 years ago when thick black smoke from hundreds of oil wells torched by defeated Iraq troops covered Kuwait's national day with a dark cloud of thick smug that lasted two years.

The three hours manoeuvre, that ended with a lavish display of fireworks over Kuwait city, was part of an elaborate programme of festivities that lasted three days starting officially by a banquet to some 400 invited guest at the Ban palace. The celebrated among the guests were Britain's former Prime Minister John major who entered the hall first with the Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, followed by a trio of former Gulf war Allies: former US President Gorge Bush, who didn't seem ' wobbly' as he was flanked by Margaret Thatcher and former President Carols Menem of Argentina. However once at the head table, Mr Major was sat three places down as he was overarched by Mrs T and Mr Bush- who seemed to down his food comfortably even though boiled broccoli was on the menu.

Colourful festivities marked the day in many places. Bedouin poets still recited verse praising the American leader , even though newly born here are no longer called Bush, Margaret or Norman, after the allied forces commander General Norman Schwarzkopf. Gen. Schwarzkopf sat, in a dark civilian suit, at the military table with Kuwaiti top brass and high- ranking British officers serving in Kuwait. While the reception halls of the Ban palace was full of American Military officers.

Except for the Kuwaiti rulers and Saddam Hussein, all statesmen  were former leaders. They all  had a day to re-live the events of the Gulf war as they were reminded by Kuwaiti acquired American and British made fighters thundering overhead. 

' It is reassuring for us [ Kuwaitis ] to see President Bush back here among us,' said NAAFI AlAhram a Kuwaiti Merchant who placed A3 size pictures of Mr Bush in his shop, ' people felt much safer that his son is now in the White House.'
Newspapers here published the photos of George and Barbara Bush arriving in Kuwait two days ago, as well as news of renewing the 10 years old American Kuwaiti defence pact. There were other items reassuring Kuwaitis of renewed American commitment to their  protection. In another well publicised signal of self confidence, the Emir gave 100 Kuwaiti Dinars ( about 200 Starlings) to each citizen.  
 
Although people in Kuwait are more relaxed than they seemed in my last visit in December 1997 - when Saddam generated another crisis , they are still wary of the Iraqi leader and his unpredictable ambitions, especially as he raised the temperature of his anti Kuwaiti and Saudi rhetoric in the last few weeks. ' His scuds would hit us first on their way to Saudi Arabia,'  people here would say.
Squeezed between the two giants, Iraq and Iran, the Kuwaitis played a shrewd and cunning game of carefully balancing politics for generations, but all remember when the game went badly wrong in 1990 and the Iraqi tanks were in down town Kuwait in six hours. 
The cloud of the brunet oil-wells and the memory of occupation are still fresh  in their minds  as they talk about the occupation. As the Kuwaitis kept a burnt out looted , once  luxury, house destroyed by Iraqi soldiers near the 'liberation tower' as a  reminder of the dark sixth months long visit by their Iraqi cousins, they will only feel safe when Saddam is removed from power. No one, even their American protector knows how.