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Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent a crowd in Baghdad into a frenzy on Tuesday as he opened a new hotel in the Iraqi capital.
The crowd went wild as the President, dressed in a dapper hat, fired several rifle rounds into the air as he officially opened the building.
The Iraqi leader also kissed a copy of the Koran and cut a ribbon during a quieter moments in the opening ceremony.
Also on Tuesday Saddam criticised his nation's Gulf neighbours, saying they had sold their souls" to the United States and Israel.
"May evil befall them, for evil indeed are the deeds they do," he said, naming Saudi Arabia but not directly mentioning Kuwait in a nationally televised speech.
The speech followed several days of anti-Kuwait editorials in Iraq's state-controlled press.
Last week was the 10th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
During the Gulf War Iraq was forced to retreat from Kuwait, strengthening military ties between the West and Kuwait and other Gulf states.
On Monday, the Iraqi newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam's eldest son, warned Kuwaiti rulers that Iraq is still capable of teaching them "an additional lesson".
Saddam's remarks on Tuesday were the harshest since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Saddam was particularly angry over a U-S and British no-fly zone over southern Iraq policed by warplanes stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
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