Unity key to a new Iraq - possible replacements for 'The Butcher of Baghdad' emerge

WASHINGTON - Iraqis in exile sense Saddam Hussein's downfall is finally at hand and are drafting blueprints for a new regime. But U.S. analysts caution that a history drenched in treachery must be overcome for Iraq to emerge with a government aiming for unity.

The decade-old Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of dissidents based in London, is pulling together reports on federalism, democracy, human rights and civil rights for a transitional government.

President Bush has made no decision about war with Iraq, and there is no guarantee that war would lead to the regime change that the president has said he wants to see.

"He says he will retire once Saddam is gone, but I hope I can convince him otherwise," Mr. Qanbar said.

Dr. Chalabi is not the only candidate, but he is well-regarded by several members of the Bush administration and Congress. Dr. Chalabi, however, is viewed with suspicion within the State Department and the CIA. The depth of his support inside Iraq is unknown, though Mr. Hussein has run a strong propaganda campaign against him.

The State Department blocked funding for the Iraqi National Congress late last year because of accounting irregularities and sponsored a rival effort to draft blueprints for a new regime with a broader array of Iraqi dissidents. The two blueprint campaigns were merged after Dr. Chalabi had what supporters say was a friendly meeting at the White House last month with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Even without those differences, the factions within the Iraqi opposition have a sorry history among themselves.

"They have been competing and squabbling for years," said Phebe Marr, an academic specialist on Iraq who taught at the National Defense University.

The intrigues and infighting mean a big job for the U.S. military after Mr. Hussein is gone, Dr. Marr said.

Removing Mr. Hussein could mean "a long-term military and political commitment to assure a stable and democratic government," she said.

Scott Feil, a retired colonel who directs a study project on postwar reconstruction for the Association of the United States Army, told Congress this summer that about 75,000 U.S. troops would be needed for at least a year after Mr. Hussein is ousted.

Iraq is a diverse country of different ethnic groups and religions. A majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims, who split with the Sunni Muslims centuries ago over the Shiite belief that spiritual leadership should be based on hereditary ties to the Prophet Muhammad.

The Kurds of northern Iraq make up about 20 percent of the population and regard themselves as part of a nation scattered among Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Since the 1970s, the Kurds say, U.S. administrations have three times built up Kurdish rebel armies and then abandoned them.

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq are about 15 to 20 percent of the population, and they live across the central part of the country and in the main cities. Mr. Hussein, his kin and clan are Sunnis.

Some analysts in the United States and among Iraq's neighbors fear that the overthrow of Mr. Hussein could cause enough strife among these three main groups to split the country into rump states that might be coveted by Turkey and Iran.

Others disagree and say Iraq has become an urban, integrated nation that not even the Kurds would now want to break apart.

Rend Rahim Francke, an Iraqi who leads the Washington-based Iraq Foundation, calls the fear of fracture "a myth" spread to keep U.S. forces from advancing to Baghdad during the Gulf War.

"This myth was spun in 1991 principally to keep Saddam Hussein in power," she said.

In northern Iraq, the two main Kurdish political parties fought a bitter civil war in the mid-1990s after one betrayed the other in a pact with Mr. Hussein. Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Masoud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party have run northern Iraq free of Mr. Hussein's interference for many years but have not been able to work together in a joint administration.

When Mr. Barzani made his deal with Mr. Hussein, the Iraqi army swept into northern Iraq and ousted Dr. Chalabi's INC followers, sending 6,000 Iraqis into exile. Many of them were flown to Guam and eventually resettled in the United States.

Instead of faulting his Kurdish colleague, though, Dr. Chalabi blamed the CIA for abandoning his rebellion. Both of the main Kurdish parties belong to the Iraqi National Congress.

The largest organized opposition group for southern Iraq works from Iran under the leadership of Sheikh Muhammad Baqr Al-Hakim, an Iraqi cleric who for 20 years has sought to make Baghdad the capital of an Islamic government.

In the weeks following the 1990-91 Gulf War, Mr. Hakim's followers tried unsuccessfully to take charge of a rebellion among southern Shiites against Mr. Hussein. Instead, the move divided the rebels and helped Mr. Hussein crush the uprising.

Other opposition groups have formed around former Iraqi military officers and an exile community that longs for a return of the monarchy to Baghdad.

One legacy of the First World War was the creation of three Arab monarchies ruled by the Hashemite family: Iraq, Jordan and the western Arabian kingdom of Hejaz. The Hashemites were allies of T.E. Lawrence - Lawrence of Arabia - who drove the Ottoman Turks out of the Arabian Peninsula. The Hashemites ruled the kingdom of Hejaz until the 1920s, when the Saudi royal family drove them off. King Faisal of Iraq was killed in a 1958 coup. The Hashemite family legacy lives on in exile and in Jordan, where King Abdullah reigns.

Sharif Ali bin Al-Hussein, an Iraqi member of the Hashemite family, hopes for a return of the monarchy but is the official spokesman of the Iraqi National Congress. The monarchy movement got a lift during the summer when Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan arrived at an Iraqi opposition meeting.

Prince Hassan was crown prince of Jordan before his dying brother King Hussein passed the throne to his son Abdullah. King Abdullah publicly rebuked his uncle Hassan for attending the Iraqi opposition meeting.

Iraqi National Congress officials say Prince Hassan attended as an interested party, and that the prince is a longtime friend of Dr. Chalabi.

That only adds to the intrigue surrounding Dr. Chalabi, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former math teacher at the American University of Beirut.

Dr. Chalabi fled Jordan in 1989 as his Petra Bank collapsed. Prince Hassan was said to be behind his escape. Dr. Chalabi was convicted in absentia of embezzlement by the Jordanian government, a conviction his supporters say was a sham urged on the Jordanian government by Mr. Hussein.

Between 1992 and 1995, Dr. Chalabi organized an INC militia within Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq with the help of the CIA. When he launched an attack on Mr. Hussein's forces, however, the CIA refused to support him.

Francis Brooke, a Washington lobbyist and adviser to the Iraqi National Congress, said Dr. Chalabi learned from that experience that his future should be grounded in Congress rather than the CIA.

"Congress is a base that doesn't go away. We went after it the same way AIPAC [the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee] does," Mr. Booke said. "The Iraqis came here and worked their butts off, with Dr. Chalabi the principal face of it, to develop support that was not dependent on the foreign policy elite and the intelligence community."

The effort culminated in the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act, which committed the U.S. government to regime change in Iraq and promised the INC $97 million for military training and another $15 million for radio and television broadcasts into Iraq and intelligence gathering.

Only $2 million of the training funds were released to the INC. The INC television station went off the air several months ago after the State Department suspended funding due to accounting irregularities. The INC's intelligence gathering budget was cut off by the State Department, but the Defense Department then picked up the account.

Mr. Qanbar said two of Mr. Bush's major findings in the "Decade of Defiance" white paper, released with the president's speech to the United Nations, came from Iraqi National Congress defectors.

Mr. Brooke said the INC expects to have its final audit meeting with the State Department next week, and expects funding will resume after that.

Still, Dr. Chalabi is not likely to emerge as a U.S.-imposed president of Iraq, Dr. Marr said.

"He's got a lot of very strong supporters in Washington, but he's really burned a lot of his bridges with the other opposition groups," she said. "It's no longer Ahmad and nobody else."

Re: "possible replacements for 'The Butcher of Baghdad' emerge"

A "Bill and Hillary" team would allow us to exchange
Bimbos for Oil.......

Just a thought...

"Iraq" has no reality other than as the territorial expression of Saddam's despotism.

The territorial integrity of "Iraq" cannot be preserved and should not be preserved.

Which raises the question, why does our government seem to care?

I say: Mosul and Kirkuk back to the Turks, Basra to Free Persia, Baghdad as American military HQ for the invasion of Saudi Arabia.

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