KUWAIT: Kuwait has said the US, whose forces freed it from Iraqi occupation 11 years ago, could use its military bases for any attack on Baghdad sanctioned by the United Nations.
But the Gulf Arab state's Foreign Minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, told reporters that Kuwait's armed forces would not take part in any attack.
"If a resolution is issued, the bases will be used, but not the Kuwaiti military," he said. He reiterated that the US military presence in Kuwait was governed by a joint defence pact. "They are in our bases, so how can they not use them?"
The US has been pouring military hardware into the region, particularly Kuwait, in recent months in apparent preparation for a possible war on Iraq, but officials insist it is for an intensified training programme.
Meanwhile, Iraq applauded US ally Saudi Arabia yesterday for forbidding US forces from using its soil as a launch-pad for attack.
"Saudi Arabia is thanked for its position which goes in line with Arab solidarity," Iraq's Culture Minister, Mr Hamed Yousif Hummadi, told reporters in Baghdad.
Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it would not allow the US to use its facilities to attack Iraq, even if a strike had UN sanction - a pointed sign of how little enthusiasm frontline US allies appear to feel for war.
The remarks were the strongest rejection by Saudi Arabia - which was a launch-pad for the US-led 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait after a seven-month occupation - of any assistance to a possible US attack.
Saudi Arabia has in the past indicated that the US could use its bases for an attack if sanctioned by the UN. It was not clear what prompted the apparent shift in the Saudi position.
Faced with this possible rejection, the US has already spent $1.4 billion on expanding Qatar's Al Udeid facility into a major air base and military staging ground.
Washington has several Gulf bases, mainly in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and Qatar is increasingly becoming a key base.
The United States used the Al Udeid base last year after Saudi Arabia refused to let US planes and troops heading to Afghanistan use its Prince Sultan base. - (Reuters)