Bush Attacks Anti-Arab Bias in U.S. : White House: Exiled Kuwaiti regime gives $13.5 billion to the Persian Gulf War effort.

President Bush today denounced discrimination against Arab-Americans as a result of the Persian Gulf War. “There is no room for discrimination against anybody in the United States of America,” he said.

Also at the White House today, the exiled government of Kuwait gave $13.5 billion to the Persian Gulf War effort.

Bush told a delegation of Arab-Americans at the White House that the coalition fighting Iraq is “holding together with great strength and great conviction.”

Bush told the community leaders, “I’m more determined than ever to bring this to a successful conclusion.”

Bush acknowledged that the war may have created “some divisions of one kind or another” among Arab-Americans. “That’s fine,” he said.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III accepted the Kuwaiti contribution at a meeting with Sheik Saud Nasir al Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador.

The Kuwaiti official, whose oil-rich regime was one of the wealthiest in the world, called the $13.5-billion contribution “small and insignificant.” Last year, Kuwaiti officials provided $5 billion to the effort to free their country. In all, the gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia, gave a total of $12 billion.

The war is costing the United States a minimum of $600 million a day. Japan kicked in $9 billion Thursday.

As he posed for pictures with the sheik, Baker was asked about Iraqi threats of terrorism. “We don’t think it’s rhetoric. We have solid evidence of efforts to accomplish terrorist acts,” Baker said.

Earlier, Bush met with members of the Republican National Committee, where he gave a detailed description of his “internal debate” on the decision to go to war, according to people who attended the meeting.