June 27, 2000
Leaders of several Iraqi opposition parties vowed Tuesday to create "a military force" to topple Saddam Hussein and pleaded for greater U.S. aid in their cause.
A delegation of seven leaders from the London-based Iraqi National Congress outlined their evolving strategy for challenging Saddam in a second day of meetings with U.S. officials and public speeches. "Our main purpose is to create a military force which will challenge Saddam and act to draw other Iraqi military units we are in touch with ... to come over and join us for the purpose of changing the regime," said Ahmad Chalabi of the INC's presidency council.
First, however, the INC leaders need to convince U.S. officials that they are capable of mounting a serious challenge to Saddam and to accomplish more mundane tasks, such as establishing an office in London and an administrative plan for their organization.
They also plan to create a "media infrastructure" to disseminate information about the opposition within Iraq and about Saddam's rule to the rest of the world, and they want to increase humanitarian aid within Iraq, they said.
The group met Monday with Vice President Al Gore and came away optimistic that U.S. support to topple Saddam would be greater should Gore become president next year than it has been under President Bill Clinton. "I got the impression that if he (Gore) were president, he would take a much more active position in support of the Iraqi opposition than the current administration," said Sherif Ali bin al-Hussein, leader of the Constitutional Monarchist Party.
He accused the Clinton administration of "undermining" the opposition by expressing doubts about its potential effectiveness and by being slow to release financial and materiel support approved by the Congress. The United States has earmarked 8 million dollars to support the INC during the fiscal year that will end September 30, and an additional 97 million dollars' worth of excess military materiel and training.
Gore pledged that the training would be accelerated, and the INC has submitted a list of 145 candidates for various trainings in areas such as field medicine, logistics and communications that could support "field operations", a senior State Department official said Monday following the Gore meeting.
The INC delegates said U.S. support was "essential" for their cause, especially in shoring up support for the opposition among Gulf states. Bahrain and Qattar have recently re-established diplomatic relations with Baghdad, further evidence that Saddam is "eroding" the diplomatic isolation that he suffered following the Gulf War, they said. In recent months, Saddam has strengthened his diplomatic position even while his hold on power inside Iraq has weakened, Chalabi said. Disaffection with Saddam has increased in the security forces and the military, he said.
The seven-member delegation, which includes the leaders of two rival Kurdish parties from northern Iraq, met Tuesday with Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, and members of the delegation will testify before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Texas Governor George W. Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, has agreed to meet with the delegation but no meeting has yet been scheduled, Chalabi said. dpa dm mr
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