Iraqi Troops Seizing Food, Kuwaitis Say : Military: Soldiers also are reported to be discarding weapons in an attempt to blend in with citizens of the emirate.

Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait city are growing demoralized, suffering food shortages, and a scattered few are dropping their arms and trying to fade into civilian society there, according to the Kuwaiti government in exile.

A government spokesman met with reporters late Sunday and said Iraqi troops are going house to house in Kuwait city in search of food, trying anxiously “to create their own food chain.”

The accounts could not be verified by correspondents here with the U.S.-led coalition, but they offered a glimpse of the effects of four days of air war against the Iraqi forces.

Iraqi soldiers “are trying to grab all food available and take it by force in some cases,” said Abdul-Rahman Awadi, Kuwait’s minister of state for Cabinet affairs.

“Even their elite guards’ supply lines are not providing them with a decent living. What is clear is that the morale of the soldiers is very low,” he said.

Awadi said he had been in contact with Kuwait residents just an hour before speaking with reporters.

He described water shortages in the besieged city as well, the result of interruptions in electrical power used by water desalination plants.

In groups of 10 and 20, Iraqi soldiers also are reported to be dropping or hiding their arms, asking for civilian clothes and trying to hide out in private homes as if they hoped they could blend into the city life, he said. Primarily, they sought out private homes that were abandoned by Kuwaitis after the August invasion. He declined to estimate the number of army defections.

This account of life in Kuwait followed a briefing one day earlier in which Awadi, a physician, said the city’s two main 500-bed hospitals already were bulging with Iraqi wounded.

“They said they are not coping with the numbers--they have a lot of them in the corridors,” Awadi stated.

The purpose of Awadi’s briefing for Western and Arab reporters was to release the text of a television speech recorded by the emir of Kuwait, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, to be broadcast to the citizens of Kuwait city.

“The endeavors of the entire world to stand up against the law of the jungle, which the dictator of Iraq wished to prevail, were crowned with success,” the emir’s officially translated statement said.

His remarks brought what was described as a return message from Kuwait stalwarts, suggesting that Kuwaitis are “anxious to rebuild our beloved nation under your leadership.”

Times staff writer Kim Murphy contributed to this story.