Chicago Tribune February 14, 2002
U.S. weighs use of Iraqi dissidents
By Howard Witt and John Diamond
WASHINGTON -- While actively studying military options against Iraq, the Bush administration is renewing its emphasis on using Iraqi opposition groups to destabilize Saddam Hussein's regime from within, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
"People tend to always underestimate opposition to regimes like that," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We believe there's considerable opposition and we're doing what we can--we're going to do what we can to support them."
The possibility that the U.S. will use military force to topple Hussein has drawn sustained attention in the two weeks since President Bush branded the Iraqi regime part of an "axis of evil."
Bush said Wednesday that he was holding his options "close to my vest" for the time being, but he issued a stark warning to Hussein.
"Make no mistake about it: If we need to, we will take necessary action to defend the American people," Bush said after meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. "And I think that statement was clear enough for Iraq to hear me. ... Saddam Hussein needs to understand I'm serious about defending our country."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with the Tribune on Wednesday, emphasized that Bush has not yet made a decision to use force against Hussein.
"Of course, military power is always an option, but it's one among several," Rice said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in testimony before Congress in the last week, said officials had prepared a range of economic, diplomatic and military options for the president's consideration.
By refusing to allow United Nations inspectors to scrutinize Iraq's attempts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Hussein has made it "very clear that he's going to remain a danger," Rice said.
The administration has been sharpening its warnings to Hussein since Bush's State of the Union speech, in which he declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea to be member states of an "axis of evil" whose pursuit of weapons of mass destruction would not be tolerated.
Backing up the rhetoric
That rhetoric is being backed by active planning to finally accomplish a goal that has eluded the United States since the 1991 Persian Gulf war: what the Bush administration terms "regime change" in Iraq.
On the diplomatic front, those plans hinge on the implementation by the UN of so-called smart sanctions, a narrowed list of items with potential military uses that Iraq would be prohibited from importing until it agrees to allow UN weapons inspectors into the country.
U.S. diplomats have said that Russia, which has extensive economic ties with Iraq, is close to agreeing to the new sanctions formula. That arrangement would replace broad sanctions the UN imposed after the gulf war. Iraq and many other countries claim those sanctions have harmed civilians.
But the senior administration official said the president is not interested in mere "behavior modification," suggesting that even if Hussein were to agree to allow UN inspectors into his country, it might not be enough to satisfy the administration.
U.S. allies in the war on terrorism, particularly European and Arab nations, have expressed nearly unanimous concerns about any U.S. military attack against Iraq, warning that such action could destabilize the entire gulf region and stoke Islamic extremism.
But Powell told Congress last week that, in the event the president decides to use military force, the United States is prepared to go it alone against Iraq if allies cannot be persuaded to help.
The State Department, sensitive to how American actions are perceived in the world, is preparing various Iraq scenarios and gauging predicted international reactions.
"What's the worst that could happen if we decide on a unilateral-type direction in Iraq? How long can that action take? What would a post-Saddam Iraq look like? Those are the kinds of questions we are asking," a State Department official said. "Post 9/11, and post-Afghanistan, there's a sense that we have new options available to us."
Groups pose little threat
As part of its strategy, the administration is trying to strengthen contacts with Iraqi opposition groups, which are numerous but so far have shown little ability to pose a real challenge to Hussein's hold on power. All but a handful operate outside Iraq, in Britain, Syria, Jordan and Iran. A few rival Kurdish factions function in northern Iraq in a UN-controlled enclave established after the gulf war.
Last month, the Bush administration restored financial aid to the largest opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based umbrella group. The State Department had suspended the funding over questions about how the group used the $12.4 million in U.S. aid it had received since 1998.
The Iraqi National Congress and six other groups named in the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress, are authorized to receive up to $97 million in surplus U.S. military equipment. But the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, has declined to fund any opposition activities inside Iraq.
The senior administration official said that the White House is reviewing that funding policy.
The other groups are the Iraqi National Accord, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan and the Movement for Constitutional Monarchy.
These and other opposition groups pursue their own often sharply divergent agendas. And none appears to have the weaponry or geographic position to challenge Hussein's heavily militarized regime.
"This is like Nazi Germany," said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington think-tank. "Saddam has had a third of a century to perfect his security apparatus, and I think he has effectively extirpated any formal or informal resistance in areas that his forces control."
The Iraqi National Congress has advanced the theory that a modest amount of U.S. military pressure on Iraq would spark an uprising that would topple Hussein's regime.
A U.S. official familiar with some of the planning and ongoing operations against Iraq said there are little-known opposition cells inside the country that present an opportunity to the U.S. For now, though, the Bush administration considers them so vulnerable to an Iraqi crackdown that they cannot be named or described even in general terms.
Another scenario would be for Hussein's lieutenants to overthrow him. A history of violence within Hussein's own family has led some to suggest that one of his sons, Uday Hussein, who runs the country's security apparatus, could mount a coup. The question for Washington would be whether such an act would change anything for the better.
"How far down into the Iraqi regime would we have to go before we found somebody who would be acceptable to us?" Pike said.
A military offensive against Iraq would also pose serious problems, particularly finding a base in the region from which to launch it. It is almost certain, for example, that Saudi Arabia, which allowed U.S. troops to use its bases during the Persian Gulf war, would not allow its territory to be used as a springboard for invading Iraq.
Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who probably would command any military action against Iraq, was in Kuwait this week amid speculation he was laying the groundwork for deployment of U.S. troops that would form the nucleus of an invasion force. Franks denied such speculation.
Vice President Dick Cheney is set to depart on a tour of Middle East and Persian Gulf countries next month, although administration officials insist that the trip is not intended to line up support for possible military action against Iraq.
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune
