Gulf War anniversary gives Kuwaitis mixed feelings

KUWAIT CITY -- Twelve years after U.S.-led forces liberated this oil-rich Persian Gulf nation, many Kuwaitis find themselves torn between a desire to see Saddam Hussein go and fears of what could happen if war breaks out in their giant neighbor.

Those mixed feelings have led to mixed signals: Kuwait's leaders have spoken out against launching war in Iraq without U.N. approval, even as they open their borders to thousands of U.S. troops who would spearhead any attack.

The Americans "played a great role to liberate Kuwait. And now they are playing a great role to secure Kuwait," said Khaled al-Jarallah, undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry.

"The whole of Kuwaitis welcome the Americans here and are ... ready to cooperate with the Americans," he said.

The gratitude most Kuwaitis feel toward America makes them something of an anomaly in the Muslim world, where both anti-U.S. sentiment and opposition to war in Iraq are running high.

Officials here are careful not to offend the sensibilities of their Arab neighbors. Al-Jarallah was quick to add that more needs to be done to help the Palestinians and that any war in Iraq should be "under the umbrella of the United Nations."

Yet diplomats and other observers here believe the Kuwaitis would be euphoric if U.S.-led forces ousted Saddam -- as long as the war goes quick, relatively clean and without excessive civilian casualties that would inflame passions throughout the Muslim world.

17,000 troops

The country has allowed the deployment of some 17,000 U.S. troops, with tens of thousands more expected in anticipation of a possible attack -- something U.S. officials say will soon take place unless Saddam rids his country of all weapons of mass destruction. A fresh contingent of Marines was arriving Friday. Iraq denied having any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Kuwait is critical for any U.S. invasion of Iraq because of its location along the gulf shores at Iraq's southern border.

Friday was the 12th anniversary of the launch of Operation Desert Storm, which began Jan. 17, 1991, with air attacks against Baghdad and other Iraqi cities and ended six weeks later with the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

Firefighter Amin Karam's cousin and two of his friends were seized by Iraqi troops shortly after Saddam's military invaded on Aug. 2, 1990. They are among the 605 Kuwaiti prisoners of war whose fates remain unknown.

Karam, 37, said he hopes a second Gulf War will finish off Saddam and bring his people back.

"We pray to God that they will come home," he said, sitting on his motorcycle at a seashore beside Kuwait City's poshest mall.

Still, he said, "We are scared, for ourselves and for our children."

Frightened, too, is 42-year-old merchant Hani Yusuf. "I think Saddam got nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union broke apart," he said.

Kuwait's leaders have ordered 2 million gas masks to protect the population against a chemical or biological attack. In recent weeks, civil defense organizations have staged mock chemical attacks and bomb drills to prepare Kuwaitis for the worst.

After Iraqi troops were driven out in 1991, the government set out to rebuild Kuwait exactly as it had been before the invasion. The shopping malls and government palaces are as sleek as ever. Lamborghinis cruise wide, tree-lined avenues and hundreds of thousands of guest workers perform Kuwait's menial labor.

Yet reminders of what took place 12 years ago are everywhere.

Photos in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel in downtown Kuwait City show the building in ruins. A sign at the Kuwait Towers -- a giant, futuristic shaft with breathtaking views of the Persian Gulf -- reads: "The Iraqi invaders made a beautiful oasis a dead land."

"We know that today is the anniversary," said Um Abdullah, a Bedouin woman peering at the view on Friday. "We thank God and we thank the allies that they liberated us."

But a 55-year-old owner of a gun shop, who identified himself only as Mahmoud, said he thinks the U.S.-led coalition drove Saddam out of Kuwait for purely selfish reasons and that America's motives are no more noble today.

"Saddam is only an excuse," he said. "It's because we have oil here."

A few Kuwaitis have acted on their hatred of America.

A U.S. Marine was killed and a second was wounded Oct. 8 when two Kuwaiti Muslim fundamentalists opened fire on a group of Marines taking a break from training. The attackers were killed by other Marines. On Nov. 21, a Kuwaiti policeman shot and seriously injured two U.S. soldiers after stopping their car on a highway.

"Nowadays there are some Islamic groups who brainwash young, uneducated people," said Ahmed al-Bustan, a 65-year-old professor of education.

Al-Bustan said he recently visited London's Hyde Park and was called a "fascist" by fellow Muslims for his pro-American views.

"They said Saddam is a hero. But I told them, 'You are far away and you didn't experience what we experienced."'