CIA Looking For Iraqi Generals In Exile To Overthrow Saddam

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and State Department have begun aggressively pursuing exiled Iraqi generals in European countries and within the United States, whom they view as key players in toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, US officials and Iraqi dissidents said. 

The overtures, which have troubled some officials in the Pentagon, have intensified since January 29, when US President George W. Bush signaled out Iraq along with Iran and North Korea as part of "an axis of evil" trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. "By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger", Bush had said during his State of the Union address before Congress. Ever since, officials in the United States have heightened their anti-Iraq rhetoric. 

Lately in Washington, US officials have met with two former Iraqi generals - Fawzi Shamari, a Shiite officer, and Najib Salhi, a former Republican Guard commander. In London, the officials met with a third, Wafiq Sammarai, a one-time chief of military intelligence who escaped Iraq in 1994. 

According to a Boston Globe report, the goal of the meetings was to find out what the officers might be able to contribute in order to assist in the overthrowing of the Saddam Hussein administration and how the military would respond to such a move. 

Furthermore, the CIA has enhanced contacts with another important Iraqi figure, Nizar Khazraji, a former Iraqi chief of staff who lives in Denmark in exile and is thought to maintain relations with officers inside the sanctions-hit country, according to opposition officials. 

The London-based Al-Hayat daily reported that Khazraji was the prominent candidate on a US-generated list of more than 55 dissident officers to serve as ''an Iraqi Karzai,'' a reference to the US-supported interim Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai. 

The officers on the list are all Sunni Muslims, just like Saddam Hussein. The State Department denies that report, terming it as premature. However, it has described the meetings as essential to its efforts to increase support for overthrowing a regime actively opposed by three administrations. 

''Certainly any regime change is going to have to draw on military elements already inside,'' a State Department official said on condition of anonymity. 

It emerges, though, that not everyone in Washington, however, agrees with the State Department and CIA plans. 

For its part, the Pentagon critics complain that the latest overtures are undermining support for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition group that has received some $12 million in US funds. 

The INC enjoys significant support in Congress and the Pentagon but is often treated with disdain by both the State Department and CIA. ''What I have seen in recent weeks is a desperate effort by opponents of the INC to find an alternative,'' said Richard Perle, a former Reagan administration official who serves as chairman of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. ''I think it's foolish and short-sighted.'' 

Furthermore, Perle is worried that the State Department and CIA efforts send a mixed message to the region. ''It seems to me very damaging, and it creates confusion,'' he expressed. 

The debate goes to the core of a long disagreement over how to mold anti-Iraq policy, which has demonstrated few, if any, successes since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. 

Perle has outlined a plan, remindful to that carried out in Afghanistan since September 11 that combines bombing with US forces aiding the opposition. A government would be established in territory wrested from Hussein, and his army would be encouraged to revolt. ''I don't think we'd have to defeat Saddam's armies; I think Saddam's armies would defeat Saddam,'' he said last month. 

Few outside the Pentagon, though, say the INC could be the ones to fulfill that task, and in recent weeks, State Department and other US officials have escalated their efforts to recruit the support of the former Iraqi generals. 

The Boston Globe adds that Salhi, formerly a senior commander in the army and Republican Guard who escaped Iraq through the Kurdish-controlled north in 1995, has received much of the attention. The State Department calls the contact ''pretty fairly regular'' - the most recent a meeting on Tuesday. 

''Before there were ongoing meetings,'' an Iraqi opposition official conveyed. ''But in the past two or three weeks, they've been more serious than before. They're trying to build another INC.'' 

Salhi is seen as a connection to senior officers who would prove important key to any overture to the Iraqi army. Salhi has said he detects a new rhythm in dealings with the administration. ''I heard very encouraging words from them,'' he told the Boston Globe. He said he promised to attend a meeting that the State Department is seeking to organize in Europe this upcoming spring that would draw former military officers. 

Meanwhile, another major figure is Sammarai, who moved to London five years ago. He said he met a US official and a diplomat from the Embassy in January in discussions that centered on how the Iraqi military would respond to change. ''They wanted to know how we see the Iraqi Army after Saddam,'' he said. 

It is believed that the official to be supported by the CIA is Khazraji, who defected to Jordan in 1996. ''Certainly there's every reason to believe he still has connections inside Iraq,'' a State Department official said. ''That's his strength. Does that mean he's the next Karzai? No, that's not what I'm saying.'' 

Meanwhile, Whitley Bruner, a former CIA station chief in Baghdad, met Khazraji earlier this year outside Copenhagen. However, Bruner told the Globe that ''there was absolutely no involvement with the US government at all,'' and the CIA declined to comment on its stance toward Khazraji. 

It appears that Washington is not the only one pursuing Iraqi generals. For instance, Ben Bradshaw, the junior British foreign office minister, has recently met in London with Iraqi opposition forces. It was reportedly the first opposition meeting with a British minister in two years. ''He asked about the possibility of a military coup, defection of army officers, movements within the military. All the questions are about the military,'' said Hamid Bayati, a spokesman for a Shiite opposition group. 

Many view the former Iraqi generals as key to any penetration into an institution that Saddam strongly keeps his eyes on. ''They're sort of a liaison to the actual power,'' said the former defense official, ''the guys who have the tanks or the guns.'' (Albawaba.com) 

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