Saddam apologies to Kuwaitis for occupation

10.00am

BAGHDAD - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein apologised to the Kuwaiti people on Saturday for his 1990-1991 occupation of the oil-rich emirate but blasted their rulers for conspiring with the United States against Iraq.

"We apologise to God for any deed that angered him in the past, which we might not have known of and is blamed on us, and on this basis we also apologise to you," said a letter from Saddam to the Kuwaiti people read out on Iraqi television by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

The letter was read at the same time as Baghdad handed over a declaration of its weapons programmes to United Nations weapons inspectors in accordance with last month's UN Security Council resolution 1441.

The televised statement said Saddam chose to release the letter because the Kuwaiti rulers were conspiring with the United States and Iraqi exiles against Baghdad.

"The timing behind this is the public statements by Kuwaiti officials and their plotting hand in hand with foreign armies to hurt Iraq and facilitate its occupation by foreign armies," the letter said. "They will be chased away and disappointed."

The United States alleges Baghdad has biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes in violation of UN agreements reached after the 1991 Gulf War when a coalition led by Washington forced invading Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

The United States, which has more than 10,000 troops training in Kuwait, has threatened to lead another attack against Iraq if it does not comply with the UN resolution.

Resolution 1441 requires Baghdad to divulge any nuclear biological or chemical weapons by December 8 and provide UN inspectors with sweeping access to scour Iraq for any evidence of their existence.

Saddam blamed his 1990 invasion of Kuwait on the United States, said the emirate remained under US occupation and called on Kuwaitis to join Iraq in resisting it.

"Why will not the faithful, the devoted and the holy warriors in Kuwait meet with their counterparts in Iraq under the blanket of their creator, instead of under the blanket of London or Washington and the Zionist entity, to discuss their matters on top of which is the jihad (holy struggle) against the occupation of infidel armies," the statement said.

He also hailed recent attacks on US targets in Kuwait.

"Greetings from us and from the people of Iraq, to those faithful young men, who carry guns in the face of the foreign occupier," the letter said.

The Iraqi president also spoke specifically of US and British planes who use bases in Kuwait to patrol a no-fly zone in southern Iraq and often bomb Iraqi targets in what Washington and London say is in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

On August 2, 1990, Iraq stormed into Kuwait, seizing it in a few hours and occupying it for seven months. A US-led coalition ended the occupation in February 1991.

Iraq and Kuwait took tentative steps towards reconciliation during an Arab summit in Beirut last March after 12 years of animosity.

Saddam said Kuwaiti leaders had ignored the reconciliation steps and were insisting on what he called their treason.

Kuwait and the United Nations also demand Baghdad comply with Security Council resolutions requiring it to account for nearly 600 missing Kuwaitis. Baghdad denies any knowledge of them and says Kuwait has withheld information on the fate of Iraqis missing since the Gulf War.

Disclosing the fate of the missing Kuwaitis is one of the key conditions for lifting 12-year-old UN sanctions against Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq