Posted on 02/27/2002 2:52:27 PM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 former Iraqi officers will meet in Washington next month under the auspices of the U.S. government to plan the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein, U.S. and Iraqi opposition officials said on Wednesday.
The conference, set to take place during the third week of March at a U.S. military installation, is aimed at sending Iraq a message that the United States is serious about its threats of forcible "regime change" in Baghdad, the officials said.
"This will be the largest conference of officers in opposition to Saddam's dictatorship ever held," Sharif Ali Bin AlHussein, spokesman for the U.S.-funded opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), said in a statement.
"It will have several aims -- to mobilize Iraqi officers and unite them with the democratic Iraqi opposition, to develop a plan of action to confront Saddam's regime, and to reinforce the important principle of the control of the military by a democratically elected government in Iraq's future."
Although the United States says it wants to get rid of Saddam, experts do not expect any attack for many months, at least until after Washington tries diplomatic efforts to get U.N. weapon inspectors back into the country.
The officers expected to attend include former Brig. Gen. Najib al-Salihi, a former chief of staff in the elite Republican Guard, a U.S. official said.
The conference will be the culmination of U.S. contacts with smaller gatherings of Iraqi officers in Washington and appears to indicate some convergence between the civilian and military approaches to the task of overthrowing Saddam.
The London-based INC has offered itself as an alternative civilian leadership for Iraq but some in the U.S. administration have questioned the INC's competence.
The State Department briefly suspended funding for the INC last December because its accounts were in such poor shape. The organization's main military force is Kurdish fighters in the north, who are reluctant to risk the security of their autonomous region by provoking the Baghdad government.
The United States fought to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991 but then let Saddam crush internal rebellions. The CIA tried but failed to overthrow Saddam in 1996.
PENTAGON FORUM
Sharif Ali's statement said that the INC would convene the conference and that the event had support both the Pentagon and the State Department.
"We are on board with them in planning this and we expect it to be at a Pentagon forum," a U.S. official confirmed.
An INC official, who asked not to be named, said: "We're trying to do it at a military installation because that would give a better message to the Iraqi army. It would tell them that their fellows are working with them against Saddam.
"The majority are high-ranking army and intelligence officers, including people who worked closely with Saddam. This is a serious business."
In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil" because of their alleged support for "terrorism" and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. officials have since singled out Iraq as the particular object of their displeasure.
But Washington's allies in Europe and the Middle East are mostly opposed to military action, at least unless the United States can prove a link with the attacks of Sept. 11.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will visit the Middle East next month on a trip expected to explain U.S. intentions and sound out regional opinions on a campaign against Saddam.
Defense and political analysts say that reluctant allies and depleted stocks of precision weapons all work against military action against Baghdad any time soon.
Yo, you demoCraps, who was the Commander in Chief in 1996.
They didn't try very hard, and as you say, weren't allowed to.
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