Fahrenheit 9/11 too hot for Kuwait

KUWAIT CITY, AUG 1: Kuwait, a major US ally in the Gulf, has banned Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 ' because it deems the movie insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and critical of America's invasion of Iraq, an official said Sunday.

We have a law that prohibits insulting friendly nations, and ties between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are special," Abdul-Aziz Bou Dastour, cinema and production supervisor at the Information Ministry, said.

He said the film "insulted the Saudi royal family by saying they had common interests with the Bush family and that those interests contradicted with the interests of the American people."

Fahrenheit 9/11 , which won the top honor at May's Cannes Film Festival, depicts the White House as asleep at the wheel before the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

Moore accuses US President George W. Bush of fanning fears of future terrorism to win public support for the Iraq war.

The Saudi royal family has taken issue with the movie for claiming that high-ranking Saudi nationals were allowed to flee the United States immediately after the attacks at a time when American airspace had been closed to all commercial traffic.

The 9/11 commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals took place before the reopening of national airspace on September 13.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to London, said in an interview published Sunday that Moore did not do proper research for his documentary.

On Iraq, the Kuwaiti official said the film "criticized America's policy on invading Iraq and this was tantamount to criticizing Kuwait for (what it did) to liberate Iraq."

Kuwait was the launch pad for the war that unseated Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who ordered the invasion of Kuwait 14 years ago. A US-led coalition fought the Gulf War that evicted Iraqis after seven months of occupation.

Saudi Arabia, a leading Arab Muslim nation, opened its land and air space to coalition forces that liberated Kuwait, and Kuwaitis are still grateful for that.

Last month, the state-owned Kuwait National Cinema Co. asked for licensing the movie to be shown in Kuwait, but the ministry denied its request. The company monopolizes cinemas in Kuwait and all movies have to be sanctioned by government censors.

"The movie made Iraq look like a paradise whose problems started with the American invasion," the official said. "It would have angered Kuwaitis."

The film is already playing elsewhere in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

(AP)