Iraq Publicizes Alleged Kuwaiti Indiscretions

In a move apparently timed to counter last week’s highly publicized meeting between the deposed emir of Kuwait and President Bush, Iraqi officials are circulating allegations of moral corruption by the Kuwaiti royal family to the state-run media and the foreign press.

According to official sources here, Iraqi authorities in occupied Kuwait have seized thousands of classified documents from government ministries there that contain what they describe as references to alleged indiscretions by the emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, and others in his family.

Two documents provided to The Times by a senior Iraqi official earlier this week, neither of which could be independently verified, describe in detail alleged sexual incidents involving the emir. Both are printed on official Kuwaiti government stationery.

Similar documents regarding an alleged drug incident involving one of the emir’s daughters have been published recently in Baghdad’s state-run Arabic-language newspapers.

The reports about the Kuwaitis’ alleged conduct have appeared within days of the emir’s tumultuous reception at the United Nations and his White House meeting with Bush, who used the emir’s descriptions of rampant looting and abuse by Iraqi troops in Kuwait to open the door to possible military action against Baghdad.

One document provided to The Times, printed on Kuwaiti government stationery, was an order purportedly signed by Sheik Nawaf al Ahmed al Sabah, the defense minister, to the head of the state security bureau. The other was handwritten in Arabic on the stationery of Kuwait’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Talib Jalal al Naqib, to his brother, Kuwait’s undersecretary of foreign affairs.

A senior Iraqi official interviewed this week confirmed that the recent allegations about the royal family are only the beginning.

“There are literally thousands of these documents,” the official said. “It’s not possible to classify and sort them so quickly. Many are already being published in the Arabic newspapers here, but many, many more, far more damaging documents are still to be leaked.”

Some independent analysts said they believe Iraqi authorities could forge such documents because they have access to all of Kuwait’s official stationery following the conquest of Kuwait on Aug. 2.