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Despite celebration, Kuwait still threatened by Iraq
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Government buildings, chic boutiques, homes and luxury hotels stood scorched and gutted, set ablaze after being looted by Iraqi soldiers.
Kuwaitis - those who did not escape when Saddam Hussein's troops invaded, did not die during the seven-month occupation or did not disappear as hostages of the fleeing Iraqis - surveyed the carnage in shock as U.S.-led allied forces rolled into the city.
Today, Kuwaiti flags flutter in the Arabian Gulf breeze along the city's wide highways. The capital, always immaculate, gleams in preparation for tomorrow's Liberation Day ceremony.
Former U.S. President George Bush, who led the coalition that ousted Iraq, will attend the celebration. So will Colin Powell, who commanded the allied armies as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and now serves Bush's son as secretary of state.
The physical devastation of Iraq's invasion is erased. Homes, offices and shops are rebuilt; palm trees, pristine gardens and American restaurants such as Fuddruckers, Chili's and T.G.I. Friday's line the road along the coast. The upscale shopping mall of Al-Fanar is dominated by European and American designer names. BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and big American sport utility vehicles wheel past Pizza Hut, KFC, Hardee's and Dairy Queen outlets.
The sprawling villas of the wealthy give way near the city's outskirts to run-down apartment blocks, then to the desert that dominates three-fourths of the country and is home to the nomadic Bedouins.
Yet despite the always-visible wealth that comes from 10 percent of the world's proven oil resources, despite the presence of U.S. troops still guarding the emirate, Kuwaitis are bitter, scarred, insecure and even a bit divided.
"Iraq still is a threat - you never know when Saddam will decide to go and invade us again, or throw a missile loaded with biological weapons," said Khaled Al-Shatti, 29, a foreign-exchange trader at the National Bank of Kuwait.
He fingered a black misbah, a string of beads similar to a rosary, while sipping coffee in a Starbucks cafe that overlooks a yacht-packed marina.
"It keeps us under stress. You don't know what he is going to do," Al-Shatti said.
Recent U.S. and British airstrikes on military targets near Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, demonstrate how unsettled the Arabian Gulf remains.
Although the allies defeated Iraq and the United Nations continues to impose trade and travel sanctions against it, Saddam still firmly holds power and threatens Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Iraqi and international organizations say the U.N. sanctions have crippled Iraq, with as many as 1 million civilians dying from lack of food or medicine. But the sanctions also have increased regional and international sympathy for Iraqis, raising Saddam's popularity in the gulf region and other Arab countries.
Syria, and even staunch U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, initiated new free-trade agreements with Iraq. Angry street demonstrations in Arab capitals against the U.S. and British airstrikes were matched by diplomatic protests from Paris, Moscow and Beijing.
Such support for a defiant Saddam disturbs many Kuwaitis.
"Kuwait is dismayed and disappointed that ... the job has not been finished," said Saif Abdullah, chairman of the political science department at Kuwait University. "The Iraqi people do not have their freedom, and Saddam is still trying to build weapons of mass destruction."
According to Abdullah, "the smaller Gulf countries are giving some support to Iraq ... simply because they have the American umbrella supporting them. We need the Arab countries to get over the emotional aspect" of Iraqi civilian suffering caused by Saddam.
But some Kuwaitis find themselves in a quandary. Youssef Abdul-Moati, of the Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, extensively examined the cache of official paperwork left behind by fleeing Iraqi officials.
"Looking through all the Iraqi documents and reading exactly how they tortured, you become horrified," he said. "It gives us an idea of what the Iraqi people are going through.
"What we suffered in seven months, they have been suffering for years. Our sympathies are with the Iraqi people."
Ten years after the Gulf War, the region remains tense. The Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, and the election of arch-hawk Ariel Sharon - a man reviled by Arabs - as Israel's prime minister, have turned some people against the United States.
The public reaction to Israel's crackdown on the Palestinians and to U.S. missile strikes on Iraq is "not rational but emotional," said Professor Abdullah, and could easily lead to terrorist attacks on U.S. targets.
Most Kuwaitis are acutely sensitive to growing Arab support for Saddam, and some question the wisdom of U.S. policies toward Iraq.
The airstrikes "do more harm than good," said Waleed Al-Tabtabai, an Islamist member of Kuwait's National Assembly. "The support for Iraq has increased, and it has also increased (Saddam's) popularity within Iraq. We are not happy with it."
Al-Tabtabai believes Western countries should help remove Saddam by giving heavy weapons and air support to the Iraqi opposition in a concentrated military offensive.
Officially, Kuwaiti leaders approve of a strong relationship with the United States. Kuwaitis effusively express gratitude for the role the U.S. military played in freeing their country and for the continued military support. Besides some 300 American military advisers stationed here permanently, 3,000 to 17,000 U.S. troops rotate in and out of the country for exercises.
"The U.S. presence and recent airstrikes are definitely reassuring. It is good to know that someone is out there keeping an eye on Saddam," said Al-Shatti, the currency trader.
Others worry about continued reliance on the United States and other Western nations for Kuwait's security. The government has said it will expand its 35,000-man military to 50,000 over a decade.
"I have a house, and my neighbor has a house. Then my neighbor takes over my house, and the foreigner says he will get my neighbor out of my house - but everything should be shared fifty-fifty," said Emad Al-Damkhi of the National Assembly's information department.
"Not only are they my neighbors," he said of Iraqis, "they are fellow Muslims - they are my brothers, they are fellow Arabs. It makes me sad."
Abdulwahhab Al-Haroun, an assemblyman, believes "some people still have a hangover from the days of Nasser's Arab nationalism," referring to former Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser. "We paid a high price for that."
Still others take a more sanguine view: Kuwait's oil is critical to the world's economy, and the United States has a strategic interest in ensuring the flow of that oil.
"As long as Saddam is around and we don't want to have a military society, we have to stick to the United States and the West," said Kuwait University's Abdullah. "If we did not have bad neighbors, we would not need the United States.
"I am not ashamed that our interests coincide."
Betsy Hiel is a Cairo-based correspondent for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. She can be reached by e-mail at hielb@yahoo.com.
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