Arab Times
October 3, 2003

Kuwait City: Kuwait says demands for billions of dollars in war reparations owed by Iraq for losses caused by the deposed Iraqi regime is an “non-negotiable” issue. “We cannot decide on dropping our demand for compensation because it was an international decision. The Security Council gave its final decision and referred the issue to the United Nations Compensation Commission which approved claims – not only for Kuwait but also 44 other countries harmed by the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait,” Information Minister Mohammed AbulHassan told Al-Rai Al-Aam on Sunday, in the first official response to a US suggestion that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia drop the demands for compensation.

The US, through its Civil Administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, urged to consider dropping demands for billions of dollars in war reparations from Iraq for losses caused by deposed president Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1990 and 1991. Bremer made these calls Saturday during a Pentagon briefing on the situation in Iraq.

A number of MPs have warned the government it may face an angry nation if it decides to drop compensations. “If the United States is so sympathetic to Iraq and asking Kuwait to drop its compensation demands . . . why shouldn’t it cancel the debts of poor countries?” said MP Daifallah Buramiya. He warned the government against even trying to tamper with or rescheduling compensation or debt owed by Iraq.

“Dropping the compensation is a constitutional violation if the government does so without consulting the National Assembly,” said Buramiya. He added the government does not have the right to act on people’s compensations, and “instead it should demand additional compensation from Iraq for the execution of some Kuwaiti POWs.”

“This is some kind of (US) pressure on Kuwait; the issue of the reparations is something that concerns the impacted countries and the United Nations,” said MP Yousef Al-Zalzalah on Sunday. “Demanding that Kuwait of its own accord give up its rights is something unacceptable because the reparations are part of the big losses of the tyrannical (Iraqi) invasion.”

Bremer said: “It is curious to me to have a country whose (annual) per-capital income GDP is about $800, pay reparations to countries whose per-capital GDP is a factor of 10 times that,” for a war which all Iraqis now in power opposed. Saddam’s forces invaded Kuwait in 1990 and were driven out by a US-led multinational coalition in 1991. Iraq also launched missiles into Saudi territory. Baghdad subsequently agreed to pay compensation for damage it caused, and some revenue from Iraq’s UN oil-for-food deal went for payment of reparations.

Despite some warming of relations between Kuwait and Iraq since the US-led forced toppled Saddam Hussein, bilateral ties remain strained. “The Iraqi occupation happened, so the past political leadership or the one that follows it must bear responsibility for that occupation,” said Islamist MP Khaled Al-Adwa. Kuwait took a big risk by opening its airspace and land to be the springboard for the US-led forces that deposed Saddam this spring, said Islamist MP Walid Al-Tabtabaei.

“So how can such a (US) call be made?” Tabtabaei asked. “We will reject this call which robs the Kuwaiti people of what rightfully belongs to it.” A US-led invasion drove Saddam from power in April. Bremer says Iraq owes about $200 billion in total debt, with about $89 billion in war reparations claims.

He said the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council had sent delegations to meet with officials in neighbouring countries, but did not know whether the Council’s representatives had raised the reparations issue with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “It will be, obviously, something to be raised through diplomatic channels by the Iraqi government, and we certainly would encourage that,” Bremer said.

“So I think there needs to be a very serious look at this whole reparations issue. And, by the way, the Governing Council feels very strongly about that,” he added. Bremer has spent the week trying to convince a skeptical US Congress to approve $20.3 billion in reconstruction funds for Iraq to address issues such as electricity, water and sewage, oil industry infrastructure and creating police, military and border patrol forces.