Hussein Tours ‘Province’ of Kuwait : Mideast: The president of Iraq visits the emirate for the first time since his troops invaded it on Aug. 2.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein visited Kuwait today, his first known trip to the emirate since his army overran it Aug. 2.

INA, the official Iraqi news agency, said Hussein toured Kuwait City and held two meetings with military commanders there.

Iraq has annexed Kuwait and declared it its 19th province.

Hussein also met with Iraqi soldiers who assured him of their readiness to die for Iraq, the agency said.

Iraq has about 430,000 troops in or close to Kuwait, backed by 3,500 tanks.

They are confronted by a multinational force of more than 300,000 Arab and Western troops backed by 700 warplanes, with dozens of fighting ships enforcing a United Nations blockade against Iraq.

INA gave no further details of the visit, and did not say whether Hussein had returned to Baghdad.

U.S. military sources in Saudi Arabia said Baghdad has strengthened its forces in southern Iraq and Kuwait and has now deployed nearly half its 1-million-man army to defend the occupied territory.

Meanwhile, a close adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev headed for Iraq today on a special Middle East mission.

French President Francois Mitterrand also flew to the region today. He will visit the French frigate Dupleix on Thursday, then travel to Saudi Arabia for talks with King Fahd and to inspect French forces at the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

The Soviet news agency Tass announced the departure of Yevgeny Primakov, former head of the leading Soviet think tank on Middle East issues.

It said he would visit Baghdad en route to Amman, Jordan, where he would meet with King Hussein and Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat.

Tass said Primakov is “on a special mission” on behalf of the Soviet president, but did not elaborate. It also did not say with whom Primakov would meet in Baghdad.

Also in the Middle East today was Japan’s prime minister, Toshiki Kaifu. He was to meet Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Taha Yassin Ramadan, in Amman on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo.

Also today, Amnesty International issued a report saying that Iraqi troops in Kuwait have tortured and executed scores of people, some for refusing to display pictures of Saddam Hussein.