By
The Associated Press
SINGAPORE - U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen warned Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein yesterday to avoid taking any "aggressive action" against his country's neighbors, saying the United States and Britain could defeat any threat.
Kuwait urged world leaders yesterday to take steps to restrain Iraq from threatening the emirate or stability in the Persian Gulf as a whole after Baghdad warned last week that it would take action to stop what it called Kuwaiti theft of its oil.
Cohen said Saddam should "understand that the United States and our British friends are fully prepared to take whatever action is necessary to prevent him from trying to repeat his past actions."
"We can certainly handle Saddam should he choose to take any kind of aggressive action," he said aboard the USS Germantown, a warship docked in Singapore, one of the stops on his six-nation Asian tour.
Tension increased in the Middle East last week when Iraq accused Kuwait of drilling wells that allow it to siphon Iraqi oil and warned that it would move to halt its smaller neighbor's action.
Iraq historically has accused Kuwait of stealing its oil, one of the justifications it made for invading in 1990. A U.S.-led coalition army drove Iraq from Kuwait seven months later.
In the past two weeks, Iraq also has flown a jet fighter over Saudi airspace for the first time in more than a decade.
Kuwaiti Cabinet ministers discussed Iraq's recent threats yesterday, Interior Minister Sheik Mohammed Al Khaled Al Sabah said, calling the Iraqi accusation ''baseless'' and an attempt to create regional instability.
