US to give $38 million to 'Iraqi opposition'

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

US to give $38 million to 'Iraqi opposition'

     US State Dept. ponders 'Radio Free Iraq'
     Six Iraqi 'refugees' will be deported from US

UGUR AKINCI
Washington -- Turkish Daily News / March 13, 1998

Washington has taken one more step towards building an alternative to
the current regime in Baghdad by adding $38 million to the U.S. State
Department's 1998-99 fiscal year budget. The funds approved by the
U.S.  Senate will go towards supporting such "Iraqi opposition" groups
as the Iraqi National Congress and opposition figures like Ahmad
Chalabi, who testified before a Congressional committee last week.
The details of the $38 million increase are as follows: $10 million
for "political assistance to democratic opposition in Iraq," $5
million for "Radio Free Iraq," broadcasting anti-Saddam propaganda to
Iraqis, $3 million to set up an "international war crimes tribunal" to
try Hussein as a war criminal and $20 million to provide "humanitarian
relief efforts" in northern Iraq.

These suggestions were put forward by Ahmad Chalabi during his
Congressional testimony last week and supported by former Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, who also
testified. The CIA's northern Iraq operation collapsed along with the
CIA-supported Iraqi National Congress (INC), when Saddam Hussein's
Republican Guard divisions and the Kurdish Democratic Party forces of
Massoud Barzani pushed their way into the north in September 1996 and
captured the city of Arbil from Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan.

State Department

U.S. State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin made it clear on Wednesday
that he liked the idea of setting up a Radio Free Iraq and a war
crimes tribunal.

But when it came to the touchy issue of providing arms to the
opposition, Rubin proved reluctant to elaborate.

"We have worked with the Iraqi opposition in the past and we are
actively considering ways to do so more effectively in the future. The
Senate, as you know, has put forward some ideas. Some of those are
very interesting to us and we are carefully reviewing them. For
example, Radio Free Iraq is an interesting idea that we are
examining," Rubin said.

"With regard to war crimes, we have supported the calls for an
investigation into the Iraqi regime's war crimes, crimes against
humanity and possible genocide. In short, there are a lot of ideas out
there," he added.

When asked if the Clinton administration supports providing arms to
the Iraqi opposition, Rubin said: "The question of how we would
implement any decision to more effectively support the opposition is
something that is under discussion. I wouldn't be in a position to
describe what tactics we might pursue."

Six will be deported

A California court yesterday ruled for the deportation of six Iraqis
who arrived in the United States via Guam, along with a group of Iraqi
Kurds who escaped Saddam Hussein in September 1996, through Turkey.

"It's a very complex issue," Rubin said, providing the following
explanation: "After Saddam Hussein brutally struck northern Iraq in
September 1996, a large number of Iraqis, most of whom had close
connections to the United States, sought our protection. With the help
of the government of Turkey, the United States Government evacuated
over 6,500 Iraqis, mostly Kurds, from Iraq to Guam and then to the
United States. These were primarily Iraqis associated with
humanitarian programs in northern Iraq. This was an honorable and
humanitarian effort to protect Iraqis who would otherwise have been
harmed by Saddam's troops. We were aware at the time that Saddam had
many infiltrators in northern Iraq and to the extent we could, we
would quickly review the backgrounds of these individuals prior to the
evacuation.  But because of the urgent circumstances surrounding the
evacuation, we deferred complete background checks. Once the
individuals arrived in Guam, further background investigations were
completed and 25 individuals were identified as persons we believe
pose a threat to our national security.  The Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) placed these individuals into exclusion
proceedings on the grounds that they could pose a threat to the
national security. They were brought to California for hearings before
immigration judges. These cases are in various stages of the
immigration process.  "Yesterday, a judge found that six of these
individuals were ineligible for immigration relief based on classified
information developed by the U.S. government indicating that these
individuals posed a danger to our national security. No final
decisions have been made about what the U.S.  government will do if
the exclusion orders in these cases become final," Rubin concluded.

Copyright 1998. Reprinted with permission.
-----------------------------------

Senators Urge Undermining of Saddam
Republicans Propose $38 Million for Foes of Iraqi Leader

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 11, 1998; Page A06

A group of Republican senators headed by Majority Leader Trent Lott
(R-Miss.) has added a $38 million package of programs for opponents of
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to the State Department authorization
bill, hoping to change the Clinton administration's policy from
containment of the Iraqi leader to actively promoting his removal.

The plan, which emerged from a working group of GOP senators, has been
attached to the stalled conference report on the fiscal 1998-99 State
Department measure, which Republican sources say is expected to be
taken up later this week in the House. The plan was first reported in
the Washington Times.

Many of the steps were first proposed by a group of former Reagan and
Bush national security officials. However, the group's most
controversial ideas -- giving diplomatic recognition to an Iraqi
provisional government and providing it weapons and U.S. military air
cover -- are not part of the GOP legislators' initial proposal.

"This is only a first step toward the longer-term plan of ousting Saddam

Hussein," one Republican source said yesterday. The State Department
authorization bill has been tied up in Congress over controversial
amendments since last session. One Republican source said the Iraq
proposals could get attached to another piece of legislation as
well. He called the State Department authorization "the first train at
the station, and if it fails, the package will be added to the next
one that comes along."

On the other hand, this source said, attaching it to the State
Department bill "will give us a chance to debate it and get the public
to support it."

Included in the Iraq package are:

$20 million in humanitarian aid for those areas in northern and southern

Iraq where the Baghdad regime does not exercise control. The aid would
go to areas in the north where Kurdish groups at one time received $40
million

that was distributed by the Agency for International Development and
the Pentagon. Some of it would also go to areas in the south, where
Iran has in the past provided support.

$10 million in political support to the democratic opposition to
Saddam Hussein. Some of it would be used to revive cooperation
agreements among disparate opposition groups, such as the Kurds, who
split apart two years ago. Another portion would go for leadership
training of these groups.  In their report, the conferees do not
identify a specific group under which the Iraqi democratic elements
should unite, but they note that "disparate Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni
groups have in the past been willing to set aside their differences
and unite under the umbrella of the Iraqi National Congress." 

$5 million to be used to establish a Radio Free Iraq that would
broadcast in Arabic from a U.S. government-owned facility in
Kuwait. The funds would go as a grant to Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, the Prague-based broadcasting agency that is being phased out
with the end of the Cold War.

$3 million to fund an effort to get the United Nations to approve an
international criminal tribunal for "indicting, prosecuting and
punishing Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials responsible for
crimes against humanity." Noting that bringing Saddam Hussein to
justice for war crimes has been a stated goal of the Clinton
administration since 1993, the proponents see the legislation as
pushing the State Department into trying to persuade the U.N. Security
Council to approve such a tribunal.

"Some of these ideas are good and interesting," an administration
spokesman said yesterday. He pointed out that Secretary of State
Madeleine K.  Albright had told Congress earlier this year of her
support for Radio Free Iraq and working with the Iraqi opposition in
the future as the administration had done with mixed results in the
past.

The administration would rather have the Iraqi government pay for
humanitarian aid to the people in the north and south, using proceeds
from an increase the U.N. Iraq oil sales program that pays for food
and medicine to those areas.

"We should be spending taxpayer money on programs that can't be
provided by other means," this official said.

-----------------------------------------------

Senate Swinging Behind Struggle to Liberate Iraq
Forward,  p. 1
By Seth Gitell

Washington—Political momentum for American recognition of the Iraqi
National Congress as the provisional government of Iraq is surging
following the testimony before Congress this week of the leader of the
group, which opposes Saddam Hussein.
     Senator Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, left Monday's hearing
of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing telling the Forward that he intended to "push a number of the
proposals" made by INC leader Ahmad Chalabi.  "The easier ones I think
we can do," said Mr. Brownback, the subcommittee's chairman.  Meanwhile,

a State Department spokesman, James Rubin, said the State Department
was "exploring . . . steps to work more effectively with an Iraqi
opposition."
    Advocates for the free, democratic Iraqi opposition see the next
few weeks as a crucial time in their effort to oust Saddam from power
in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.  For the first
time, a group of senators—spearheaded by Mr. Brownback, by Arizona's
John McCain and by the majority leader Trent Lott of Mississsippi—are
suggesting that the best way to eliminate Saddam's ability to produce
weapons of mass destruction is to replace him with a democratic
government.  The Senate was scheduled to vote on Thursday on a
resolution to indict Saddam as a war criminal.  And Mr. Chalabi is
meeting with Pentagon officials this week.
   "Now that Saddam again threatens not only the Iraqi people, but the
region and the world, the Iraqi people ask you to give us the tools and
let us finish the job," Mr. Chalabi told a packed hearing room in the
Dirksen Senate Office Building.  "All we ask is a chance to free
ourselves.  We look to the United States to give us that chance."
   To that end, Mr. Chalabi asked America to establish no-fly,
no-drive areas in the north and south of Iraq, from which an INC
provisional government could operate without being attacked by
Saddam's tanks or helicopters.  Mr. Chalabi proposed that oil sales
from the liberated areas pay for arms and supplies needed to carry
forward the war against Saddam.
   One of the most vocal advocates of the INC option, a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Richard Perle, said the
Clinton administration was considering working with the group once
again. It was on American assurances that the INC launched a previous
effort against Saddam that ended with 400 Russian T-72 tanks rolling
in to crush the rebellion.
    "They [in the Clinton-Gore administration] face the prospect of
having to go into the next election with a monumental failure to
defend, and they are actively looking at alternatives," Mr. Perle
said.  That Chalabi was the star witness of the hearing, Mr. Perle
said, "is significant progress and represents a recognition that the
current policy cannot succeed."
   Mr. Perle played his own role in pushing for the policy shift.  In
late January, he and other foreign policy experts penned a letter about
Iraq under the auspices of the Project for the New American Century.
That caught the eye of Mr. Lott. Then, in mid-February, Mr. Perle flew
with Senator Lieberman, Mr. McCain and others to attend the Wehrkunde
Security Conference at Munich.  He used the plane ride and the
conference to buttonhole the senators about the INC.
   A former director of central intelligence, James Woolsey, has been
another vocal proponent of helping the INC depose Saddam.  "It would be
wise to recognize a government in exile," Mr. Woolsey said, testifying
at the hearing. "The INC seems to be the best option."
   During the hearing, Senator Robb, a Democrat from Virginia, asked
Mr.  Chalabi about what "assurances at the highest level" his group
received from the American government.  "Did you mean the president?"
Mr. Robb asked.  "No," Mr. Chalabi replied.  "The vice-president did
so in a letter dated August 1993."  Mr. Chalabi turned a copy of the
letter in to the committee after the hearing.
   Mr. Robb also asked Mr. Chalabi about the details of a bank Mr.
Chalabi ran in Jordan, a venture that ended when Saddam's Jordanian
allies forced Mr. Chalabi from the bank in 1989.
   An opponent of the INC, Brookings Institute analyst Richard Haass,
also testified at the hearing.  He warned that ousting Saddam could
lead to a region-wide war, with Syria, iran and Turkey all vying for
pieces of Iraq.  He added that emboldened Kurds could intensify a war
against Turkey in an effort to establish an independent Kurdistan.
   Mr. Haass made two counterproposals he said could help deter
Saddam, which amounted to getting tougher on Israel and easier on
Iran.  "We need a more energetic policy with regard to the peace
process," he said.
 There is linkage here and we need to think of a more nuanced policy
with regard to Iran."

-- 
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For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
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