Iraqi President says invasion of Kuwait was a mistake, paper says

The London- based weekly al-Muharrir news has said that the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told a prominent French official, believed to be Jean-Pierre Chevenement, about his readiness to take any measure in order to take his country and the other Arab states from the current bottleneck they are in.

In a report from Paris, the weekly quoted a French diplomatic source as saying that it is for the first time since eight and a half years in which the Iraqi President admits that he made a mistake when he occupied Kuwait and that he is ready to visit any Arab state including al-Riyadh and Kuwait if such a visit would help push the Arab condition out of the current deterioration.

The source quoted the Iraqi President as saying that the Kuwaiti people "are brotherly people" and that it is ripe time not to forget about the past and look forward towards the future. The source continued that the Iraqi President does not pay the price which has never been paid by any people in history just for the question of Kuwait, rather a punishment for the 39 missiles fired by the Iraqi army against Israeli targets in January 1991.

Worth mentioning that Chevenement was a defense minister in France in 1991. He gave his resignation because he refused to participate in the International allied troops formed following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.