Preparing for Iraq
LAKE, ELI J.
Preparing for Iraq Is the State Department getting interested in taking on Saddam? by Eli J. Lake IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS, the Bush administration has publicly signaled that a tougher Iraq policy...
...General Najib al-Salhi, a former chief of staff for Iraq's first mechanized division in the fifth corps, explained the criteria his organization is employing for the network...
...Or is it a sign of a real determination to take on Saddam on the part of the Bush administration...
...Central Command in Florida, the theater of operations that includes Afghanistan and Iraq...
...Not only does the general, who defected to the United States in 1986, promise information on troops, potential targets, and general conditions in the military he once helped lead...
...Whitley Bruner, a former CIA Middle East operations officer who has worked unofficially as a go-between with the Iraqi generals and the government, said last Tuesday that "the general thrust is to expand the circle and to develop the kinds of contacts the INC does not have: Baath, Sunni tribes, military, and security...
...In the last month, the State Department and the National Security Council have quietly increased their contact with a variety of exiled Iraqi military commanders and encouraged them to work together to form a loose network...
...For example, National Security Adviser Condoleez-za Rice said on November 8: "There is plenty of reason to watch Iraq, there is plenty of reason to make very clear to the Iraqis that the United States does not intend to let the Iraqis threaten their own people, threaten their neighbors, or threaten our interests by acquiring weapons of mass destruction...
...The session was titled "The future of the Iraqi Armed Forces after Saddam Hussein," and included about a dozen high-ranking former Iraqi military figures, including General Faris Hussein, a former Baath party military adviser who now lives in Saudi Arabia, and former Lt...
...Colonel Adil Jubori, also from Saudi Arabia...
...On the other hand, some administration hawks worry that the entire proposition is an effort to undermine the Iraqi National Congress's driving force, Ahmad Chalabi...
...The workshop's organizer, David Mack, who worked closely at State with opposition figures in Iraq right after the Gulf War, said he was surprised the State Department processed the visas for the exiled Iraqis in light of the tight restrictions on foreign visits after September 11...
...The only problem is that neither President Clinton nor President Bush has moved to fully implement the legislation...
...war planners with "all kinds of information about the makeup of the army...
...Al-Salhi himself claims to have worked in secret against Saddam from 1979 until he left Iraq in 1995, soon after the Iraqi secret police sent him a videotape of a family member being raped...
...Mack said he wanted the group to focus on the relationship between the armed forces and civilian authorities and the size of a post-Saddam armed forces, particularly looking at what arms an Iraqi army would need for defensive purposes...
...A November 8 letter to the INC leadership in London from Ryan Crocker, the deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, says specifically that "the Department of State is not prepared to fund INC activities inside Iraq at this time...
...While on Lott's staff, Scheunemann authored the Iraq Liberation Act, which promised close to $100 million in military training for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress...
...State Department officials insist this is purely a political movement, similar in mission to the Iraqi National Congress...
...Eli J. Lake is State Department correspondent for United Press International...
...I'm not saying we're not encouraging it, but we are not in the business of doing military work...
...The State Department is not in the business of developing a military network in exile," one Foggy Bottom official said in an interview last Thursday...
...Also in attendance was Kenneth Pollack, the former National Security Council Iraq expert for President Clinton, and Michael Eisenstadt, who is now a consultant for U.S...
...by Eli J. Lake IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS, the Bush administration has publicly signaled that a tougher Iraq policy may be on the horizon...
...The purpose of such a network varies depending on who is talking...
...General Fawzi al-Shamari, a former Iraqi commander who rose to the rank of general during the Iran-Iraq war, says the opposition network he envisions could provide U.S...
...He stressed he would only be interested in highranking officers who have a track record of cooperating with the opposition...
...But behind the scenes, the building blocks may also be falling into place for a more aggressive approach on Iraq...
...Indeed, many in the CIA as well as the State Department have long doubted that Chalabi and the INC are the ones to help eliminate Saddam...
...That perception is what worries Scheunemann...
...This sounds like more of the same from those who have been proven so wrong in the past," says Randy Scheunemann, an on-and-off consultant on Iraqi opposition activities for the Pentagon and former national security adviser to Senator Trent Lott...
...Officers have to have a record of working against Saddam," he said...
...All of this sounds like the Bush administration is getting serious about Iraq, but that is not the opinion of Chalabi loyalists...
...This official stresses there is "no military option" at this point...
...In an interview last week, he spoke in some detail about plans to launch an offensive in the south and the north simultaneously, relying in large part on disloyal officers he has known since he graduated from the Iraqi Military College...
...This sounds like yet another destined-to-fail effort to cobble together yet another Iraqi opposition to avoid dealing with the INC," he says...
...Al-Salhi and al-Shamari both attended a workshop on November 1 and 2 in Washington at the Middle East Institute, the Arab-leaning think tank led by Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs...
...he says he has networks of potential defectors inside the ruling Baath party, the intelligence services, and the Republican Guard...
...The exiled Iraqi generals say the group could serve as a viable catalyst for overthrowing Saddam Hussein...
...But don't tell that to the Iraqi generals...
...All told, four expatriates from Iraqi Kurdistan, another three from the Middle East, and two from Western Europe attended the private meetings...
...In fact, the diplomats have stalled even a modest plan to send INC information-collection teams into Iraq from neighboring Iran, doling out a bare-minimum budget for the group in five-month increments...
Vol. 7 • November 2001 • No. 11
