By Adel Darwish in Kuwait 

26 February 2001 

Allied aircraft marked the 10th anniversary of the end of the Gulf war yesterday by flying over the Kuwaiti desert, watched by guests including George Bush Snr, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. 

They were joined later by Colin Powell, the new US Secretary of State, who said that Iraq was a priority and that the US would never allow a repeat of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. 

During the three-hour air manoeuvre, the start of two days of events marking the end of the Gulf war a decade ago today, the skies were clear. In the early 1990s, the same skies had been black with thick smoke from oil wells set alight by Iraqi troops. 

The day's events included a banquet for 400 guests, where Bedouin poets recited verse praising the former US president and men danced the arda, a traditional Gulf dance that depicts "the joy of victory". 

This year's "Liberation Day" has been more upbeat than in the past. Kuwait had been cautious about celebrating, because 600 Kuwaitis or nationals who lived in the country until the invasion are still missing, although Iraq insists it has released all its prisoners of war. 

Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein, has raised his anti-Kuwaiti and Saudi rhetoric since air strikes on Baghdad ordered by George Bush Jnr 10 days ago, and the Kuwaiti people are wary. Everyone still remembers clearly when Iraqi tanks invaded in 1990. 

But Mr Powell, who was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during the Gulf war, gave confident reassurances that "Kuwait is free, Kuwait has friends, Kuwait has allies". He said he wanted "to make sure that we continue to contain Iraq so as it does not develop the kind of weapons that it is trying to develop." 

For a while after the Gulf war, Kuwait's new-born were often named Bush, Margaret, or Norman, after the allied forces commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf. Lady Thatcher said Allied forces had made the strategic error of not invading Iraq to "finish the job properly" before the Gulf war ended. In a newspaper interview during yesterday's event, she said: "Perhaps then we wouldn't be where we are today with this cruel and terrible man [Saddam] still in power." 

Her views were challenged by John Major, who said there were "half a dozen" reasons not to invade, including objections from Arab nations that took part. "It would have split the whole coalition wide open at a time when unity was crucial," said Mr Major, who succeeded Mrs Thatcher as prime minister when the Gulf war started.