Allied Flyby, Kuwaiti Crowds Mark Liberation

Allied warplanes streamed over a crowded shoreline Wednesday, notching up Kuwaiti confidence one year after the U.S.-led Desert Storm forces swept the Iraqi army out of the capital.

For an emirate whose own military remains undermanned and marginally trained, the thundering Liberation Day parade of allied air power underscored the government’s reliance on Western powers for its defense.

Throngs of Kuwaitis toting American, British, French and Italian flags lined the beaches still not fully cleared of Iraqi mines. More than 100 planes--including a pair of U.S. F-117A Stealth fighter-bombers and a squadron of newly delivered, Kuwaiti-piloted F/A-18 Hornets--zoomed overhead as the festive crowds below craned their necks in admiration.

Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, the ruling emir, had ordered a low-key commemoration of Kuwait’s liberation in deference to the politically sensitive issue of the more than 1,000 Kuwaitis still held prisoners in Iraq.

In a televised address over the weekend, the emir warned that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remains a threat. He called on the country’s 650,000 Kuwaitis to strive for political unity in the blossoming campaigns for October’s parliamentary elections. “The tyrant still possesses a treacherous and aggressive force waiting for an opportunity,” the emir said. “Rifts in the national ranks will make it easy for the enemy to achieve what it could not through the force of arms.”

Despite soft-pedaling from the palace, Kuwait city residents have been building up celebratory steam all week. Liberation Day coincided with Tuesday’s National Day observances; both holidays were being rolled into the Friday Muslim sabbath so that many workers turned the occasions into a five-day break. The airport was jammed with outbound passengers headed for quick trips to Europe or lower Gulf states.

Those who remained have filled the streets for two nights, circling the coast highway in a parade of honking cars, Kuwaiti and allied flags streaming from the windows; little in the Middle East has come closer to a carnival atmosphere, with a distinct American flavor.

Teen-agers wearing their baseball caps backward crowded sidewalks, squirting each other and passing cars with shaving cream, tossing firecrackers and blasting air horns. Near the landmark Kuwait Towers monument, one youth wobbled by in a gorilla suit. Some carried placards inscribed “Thank You Mr. Bush.”

Whatever the President’s political fortunes at home, he is still a hero in Kuwait.

Wednesday’s air show capped the carnival, and the appearance of the two black Stealth fighters was greeted with applause along the beachfront.

A year ago, the scene here was starkly different.

Streets were filled with dazed survivors of the Iraqi occupation, many leaving their homes and neighborhoods for the first time in months to survey the damage wreaked on their capital. Allied troops were pursuing the remnants of the Iraqi army north across the border under the grim shadow of more than 700 burning oil wells. Joy was mixed with vengeance as vigilante bands turned against Palestinians and others accused of collaborating with the Iraqi regime, which ran what Hussein had proclaimed a province of Baghdad.

The restoration process has been uneven but steady, and a somewhat different Kuwait is emerging, according to Kuwaitis, their government and foreign diplomats.

“There’s a restlessness in Kuwait today,” a Western envoy remarked. “The old links of family, tribe and business are being tested.”

Election of a new Parliament--promised by the emir while in Saudi Arabian exile during the occupation--is gaining public focus. Voting is set for an unspecified date in October, and the first signs of election fever are evident. Despite government discouragement, campaign tents are popping up around the city, a Kuwaiti phenomenon in which potential candidates entertain supporters for political discussions.

The government--dominated by the Sabah family--has refused so far to open up television and radio to campaigners and has yet to define its promises of an electoral role for the emirate’s women, who haven’t had the vote.

But more than 600 men have indicated they intend to run for the 50 seats in a restored Parliament. The issues are cloudy; diplomats expect them to revolve around demands for shared power with the Sabahs.

Commercial activity is still foundering, a major drag on optimism here. The war took a heavy toll on government resources, and in Kuwait government and business are closely tied.

“For the next few years, we will be burdened by interest on debts,” Foreign Minister Sheik Salim al Salim al Sabah conceded at a news conference this week, noting that the tens of billions of dollars the government had set aside for the future have been sharply depleted and that for the first time Kuwait has a budget deficit. Hopes for reparations from Iraq have so far been thwarted by Hussein’s intransigence.

The biggest success in the past year came in the restoration of the infrastructure.

Many office buildings, shops and hotels remain charred by fires set by the Iraqis when they fled a year ago. But water and electricity supplies were quickly restored, and the oil well fires, which some experts predicted could take two years to extinguish, were put out in nine months.

“Those achievements are fantastic,” said Michael Weston, the British ambassador who held out against Iraqi occupation until late 1991.

As the year since liberation has unfolded, Kuwait weighed various formulas for its defense. In the weeks immediately after the war’s end, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states pondered the Damascus Declaration, which pledged them to make Egyptian and Syrian forces the core of a Gulf defense force.

But the idea was scuttled by Iran, which wanted a role for itself in any Gulf security pact, and by Cairo and Damascus, which wanted more money than the Gulf states were prepared to put up. A later proposal by Oman’s Sultan Kaboos ibn Said to raise a 100,000-man Gulf army also foundered, although the Kuwaitis still pay lip service to both formulas.

Instead, the government has thrown its hand in with the Western allies, whom it considers the most certain guarantors of security in the oil-rich region.

Late last year, Kuwait and Washington agreed on a “security agreement”--neither side will call it a treaty--giving the American military access to Kuwaiti ports and airfields and the opportunity to stockpile ammunition and military equipment here. Recently, a similar arrangement was worked out with Britain and talks are under way with the French.

By banking on Western arms, Kuwait has, in effect, turned its back on its Arab brethren, who, with the exception of Egypt, Syria and the emirate’s Gulf neighbors, played no important role in the country’s liberation. “Very major damage has been done to the psyche here,” the Western envoy remarked. “Pan-Arabism for the Kuwaitis is dead.”

Salim, the foreign minister, observed at his press conference: “He who has hurt Kuwait we will not forget.” But Wednesday was a day for celebration, not recriminations.