Recruiting an Iraqi Opposition
LAKE, ELI J.
Recruiting an Iraqi Opposition Is General Khazraji the right man to liberate Baghdad? BY ELI J. LAKE GENERAL NIZAR AL-KHAZRAJI,chief of staff of Saddam Hussein's army when Iraq invaded Kuwait,...
...The State Department, too, has tried to enlist Khazraji in the opposition...
...With the investigation in Denmark now under way, the State Department is agnostic on the old general...
...I think it is important in this period of time to locate professional people for a military opposition," Thair alEli J. Lake covers the State Department for United Press International...
...The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan feels the same way...
...The two major Kurdish opposition groups in northern Iraq take a different view...
...al-Khazraji play into the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime to discourage other Iraqi officials to defect and join the Iraqi democratic opposition...
...After the story appeared, Khazraji gave two interviews to the Middle East Broadcasting Center, an Arab television channel based in London, and denied any role in the Halabja massacre...
...Now the State Department is making subtle efforts to build such an opposition group outside the Iraqi National Congress, through the Middle East Institute...
...Mohammad Sabir, the director of the PUK office in Washington, says, "We don't want to take any action against the defected military people who worked in the Iraqi army because if you do, it will help Saddam Hussein...
...From 1996 until very recently, he has refused to speak out against Saddam...
...There have been human rights and war crimes charges leveled against him, and we are interested in addressing that issue...
...On December 7, this Washington think tank hosted its second meeting of ex-Iraqi military officials in five weeks...
...There, four Danish police officers guard him round-the-clock, while the Danish Ministry of Justice investigates his role in massacres against the Kurds over 13 years ago...
...Prime Minister, to be kindly willing to take all appropriate measures so that a criminal investigation be opened against Nizar al-Khazraji, with a view to hand him over to a criminal Danish court, for punishment according to the law of your country...
...But those plans went sour after Khazraji, according to one former CIA official familiar with the discussions, demanded total control over the operation and an unlimited budget...
...Another exile group, the Kurdish National Congress, called for an investigation of the former general...
...He is the highest-ranking military man ever to defect from Iraq, where his term as chief of staff ran from 1987 till 1990...
...Human Rights Watch estimates the death toll at 100,000 in the campaign, which lasted from February 23 to September 6, 1988...
...Joost Hilterman, the Human Rights Watch researcher who analyzed the documents on the Anfal, concluded Khazraji's culpability is questionable...
...The seminar attracted representatives of three separate Iraqi military exile groups, the Iraqi National Accord, the Free Officers Movement, and the Iraqi Officers Movement...
...A leading member of the Iraqi National Liberal Movement, a group formed last year by Sunni exiles, says his organization is sending a delegation to Copenhagen this month to see if the old general will join them...
...In his discussions with the State Department, he says, U.S...
...And Khazraji is nothing if not a professional officer...
...plans to oust the Iraqi dictator move forward...
...Some in the State Department and in the Iraqi opposition see Khazraji as a leading candidate for membership in a group of ex-Iraqi military officers meant to replace Saddam's army if and when U.S...
...He led Iraq's army during the infamous "Anfal" campaign (named for the chapter in the Koran dealing with the spoils of war), in which the military rounded up countless Kurds from villages in the north and handed them over to the secret police...
...But there are atrocities against the Kurds for which Khazraji may be more responsible...
...The information that we have shows that he was involved in serious activities, but I can't say he was a war criminal," he said Wednesday...
...Khazraji kept fairly quiet until the left-of-center Danish newspaper Politiken published a story on September 16 claiming that he was the field commander when Saddam's army killed up to 3,000 Kurds with mustard gas and nerve gas in Halabja on March 16, 1988...
...Hilterman said his organization is waiting for the results of the Danish investigation to make a more definitive statement...
...He is a former senior military officer with a good military reputation, and he defected early enough so no one could say he was a traitor at Iraq's time of need...
...Whether the rebels and the State Department ever recruit their man may hinge on the outcome of that investigation...
...Nakib told me...
...In a letter to Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen dated October 30, the president of the KNC, Ismet Cheriff Vanly, wrote, "On behalf of the Kurdish people and the Kurdish victims, I urge you, Mr...
...But not all Kurds agree...
...BY ELI J. LAKE GENERAL NIZAR AL-KHAZRAJI,chief of staff of Saddam Hussein's army when Iraq invaded Kuwait, lives in a suburb of Copenhagen called Soroe...
...Indeed, Mack tried to invite Khazraji to the United States as early as 1999 but could not find him...
...David Mack, who organized the meeting for the institute, has never met Khazraji but says of him, "Khazraji has the right ingredients...
...In a letter dated October 10, the head of the Kurdish Democratic party's International Relations Bureau told Danish minister of justice Frank Jensen, "We strongly believe that these attempts to undermine the reputation of Gen...
...We know who he is, we know what he represents, but we haven't taken an official position on this yet," a State Department spokesman said Wednesday...
...Also present were representatives of the two ruling Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic party, as well as five State Department officials and an analyst from the Pentagon's National Defense University...
...When he fled Iraq through Kurdish territory in 1996, he was courted briefly by the CIA as a possible candidate to lead a foray from Jordan into Iraq, the hope being that a man of his stature would attract military defectors along the way...
...He led a reclusive life in Spain until 1999, when he fled to Denmark—he said to escape threats on his life...
...That said, we do have an interest in working with as broad an Iraqi opposition group as possible...
...In secret-police custody, the Kurds were shipped to prisons and detainment centers in southern Iraq, where they were eventually executed...
...diplomats were also of this view...
...In 1999, the State Department's coordinator for an Iraqi transition, Frank Ricciardone, attempted to contact him through third parties, even recommending Khazraji for a military commission with the Iraqi National Congress, the Americanfunded opposition group led by Ahmad Chalabi...
...This Danish probe is complicating American efforts to effect regime-change in Baghdad...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 15
