Iraq lashes out at Kuwait summit

BITTER enmity between Iraq and Kuwait erupted in a vitriolic name-calling match yesterday at an Islamic summit meant to unite the voices of the world’s one billion Muslims against war.

In a clash caught on live television before the Qatar state broadcaster shut down transmission, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s top aide Izzat Ibrahim departed from his text to zero in on the Kuwaitis sitting across the conference chamber.

“Shut up you minion, you (US) agent, you monkey. You are addressing Iraq,” Mr Ibrahim said. “You are insolent. You are a traitor to the Islamic nation,” he spat out as Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani tried to shut him up.

A Kuwaiti delegate responded that the insults were “the words of an infidel and a charlatan” as the two sides shouted and gesticulated angrily at each other.

Key US Gulf ally Kuwait, which is publicly grateful to Washington for leading a coalition that liberated it from Iraqi occupation in 1991, is hosting thousands of US Army and Marine forces in preparation for a possible invasion of Iraq.