A tale of 70 factions and 400 suits
Said Aburish Where is the opposition in Iraq? Pursuing its own vicious quarrels, writes Said Aburish
President Bush, beware: if you really want to extend the Afghan war to Iraq, you should know that the nightmarish internal politics of Afghanistan are as nothing compared with those of Iraq. The Northern Alliance may not be a very palatable alternative to the Taliban, but it has a certain rough credibility. There is no equivalent in Iraq.
Over the two years I spent writing his biography (Saddam Hussein: the politics of revenge), I got to know Saddam's opponents. They are such a corrupt, feckless and out-of- touch lot that they make the Butcher of Baghdad look good.
The four million Iraqi Kurds are divided into two tribes, the followers of Massoud Barazani (Kurdistan Democratic Party) and those of Jalal Talabani (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). Together, they occupy a large enclave in northern Iraq where they have conducted an on-and-off civil war for years. Barazani and Talabani disagree, often bloodily, over how to divide the money they get from the CIA, which pays them to keep Saddam off balance. They fight over the proceeds from smuggling goods, including oil, between Iraq and Turkey. And they compete for the bribes Saddam offers them.
Their hostility to each other keeps them from doing anything to bring down the Iraqi regime. In fact, they choose to forget that Saddam used chemical weapons against them, and shamelessly accept financial and military support from him. They even accept financial help from Iran.
Iraq's Shi'as, 60 per cent of the population, are equally split. Some want an Iraq with close ties to Shi'a Iran; others insist they are Arabs and that, to succeed, they should depend on fellow Arabs, namely Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. A third group believes in co- operating with the US, and accordingly gets paid for it. The US and UK are reluctant to help the two Shi'a groups that command real followings inside Iraq, largely because Daawa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are Islamic fundamentalist.
In addition to the Kurds and Shi'as, there are more than 70 other "opposition" parties. Some are made up of Saddam's old cronies, people who turned against him after they lost their jobs. To make a living, they accept the backing of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. They publish newspapers and magazines no one reads. They have no offices or followers. In private conversation, they admit that their cause is hopeless.
Other anti-Saddam parties are led by former Iraqi army officers; some are Saddam-appointed generals, people who rose through the ranks because of their loyalty to him, rather than any military competence. Their reasons for opposing him are also mostly personal - demotions or sackings.
The last anti-Saddam faction is made up of old politicians who left Iraq in the 1950s, when the monarchy was overthrown. Having lived abroad most of their lives, the leaders of these groups know very little about Iraq and its people. According to one of them, Saddam should not rule Iraq because he came from a poor background and "we don't even know who his father is". Another claims that Saddam is an undercover Mossad agent, part of "a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Iraq".
These are the groups the United States is trying to unite under one command capable of toppling Saddam, as the Iraqi National Congress (INC). Over the past ten years, they have met in Vienna, Salahuddin in northern Iraq, at Windsor and, most notably, in New York in October 1999.
The participants frequently walk out during these meetings; the men quarrel over who got most of the $96m allocated by the US to Saddam's opponents under the Iraq Liberation Act. One of the delegates at the New York meeting told me about the former INC chairman Ahmad Chalabi: "He takes more than his share, much more than his share, and I get nothing. Just look at the way he dresses. They say Saddam has 300 suits; well, this guy has 400."
Last year, both Frank Ricciardone, the former head of the Iraq desk at the US State Department, and General Anthony Zinni, the former head of the US Central Command, stated that the Iraqi opposition to Saddam was incapable of toppling him. Yet now, with 11 September and the war on terror, Washington's commitment to overthrow Saddam is growing stronger by the day. As a result, the United States is re- energising the idea that these groups can replace a regime which runs one of the most tightly organised security systems in the world.
But this is a fiction. Recently, I examined my notes of the lengthy interviews I conducted with 82 Iraqi opposition leaders. I began identifying those on my list whose thinking resembles Saddam's. To my horror, I decided that 75 of the people I interviewed were men who would kill to achieve their goal.
Poor Iraq. Even if Saddam goes, Saddamism, corruption and violence are there to stay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WSJ, August 13, 2002
ATTACKING IRAQ? Iraqi Rebels' Discordant History May Impede U.S. Plan for Hussein
Dissidents' Recent Meeting in New York Belies Simmering Tensions Among Opposition Groups
By HUGH POPE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LONDON -- In an office around the corner from Harrods department store here, Ahmad Chalabi plots against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, wrangles with accountants from the U.S. State Department and squabbles with other Iraqi opposition conspirators.
Head of the Iraqi National Congress and the country's best-known dissident, the 57-year-old Mr. Chalabi has been trying since the early 1990s to have his fractious coalition of opposition groups ready for the day when Mr. Hussein fell from power. It hasn't been easy. The Iraqi leader played one group off against another with threats, violence and bribes, eventually forcing many of them to abandon bases near the country. In exile, the dissidents fought for ascendancy and vied for U.S. support. They bickered all the more when Mr. Chalabi's star intermittently rose in Washington and when American money began to flow to opposition groups in recent years.
Not far away in London, Saad Jabr, leader of one of the oldest opposition groups, the Free Iraq Council, says the INC "was created by the Americans ... to dismantle the opposition." Dilshad Miran, a London representative of the powerful Kurdistan Democratic Party, thinks Mr. Chalabi has "never been a team player. He has alienated many people with his words and wild ideas."
The tension among Iraq's opposition groups amounts to a significant impediment as the Bush administration speaks more publicly about ousting Mr. Hussein. Over the weekend, in a rare display of unity, six of the leading opposition groups met in Washington with senior officials from the State and Defense departments, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group also spoke by video hookup with Vice President Dick Cheney. The U.S. officials pledged to support replacing Mr. Hussein with a democratic government. The extensive consultation with the opposition leaders indicated that they represented the makings of at least a transitional government.
Far More Complex
But the reality is far more complex, fraught with a history of rivalries and questions about the groups' effectiveness. "Proponents of regime-change ... underestimate Saddam's military and political resources, and exaggerate the potential of the Iraqi exile opposition," says David Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington and a former American diplomat who worked closely with Mr. Chalabi during the INC's birth in 1992.
In the Iraqi north, Kurdish factions can field perhaps 50,000 men, but the Kurds have never ruled the rest of the country and have no ambition to do so. What ambitions they might have, such as annexing arguably Kurdish towns such as oil-rich Kirkuk, could rankle Turkey and other countries in the region dealing with Kurdish nationalism.
The Tehran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, claims several thousand armed men in Iran. Their London representative, Hamid al-Bayati, says, "If there is a serious plan to get rid of Saddam, we'll cooperate." But the group's army is heavily dominated by Tehran and deployment would require a level of U.S.-Iranian trust and cooperation that doesn't yet exist.
Opposition soldiers are only lightly armed. Even with U.S. air power, they are no match for the Iraqi military. A popular uprising against Mr. Hussein could tap the many ordinary Iraqis who own rifles and pistols, and are linked by tribal loyalties. Many Iraqi opposition leaders base claims of importance on their superior rank in tribal hierarchies.
But while they may long to be rid of Mr. Hussein, Iraqis have shown few signs that they want to be unilaterally liberated by Americans, especially without a clear vision for the country's future. Many opposition groups have been outside Iraq for decades, and few have traction among brutalized and depoliticized young Iraqis.
U.S. hostility to the Islamist regime in Tehran raises an obstacle to smooth relations with strong opposition groups based in Iran. U.S. backing for Israel makes Iraq's Arab Muslim majority suspicious of America. Several Iraqi opposition groups are hesitant to commit to U.S. plans because of Washington's past support for Mr. Hussein and withdrawal of support for dissidents. Finally, cooperating with a U.S. offensive also could mean participating in another round of massive destruction for a country that has just about finished painfully rebuilding similar damage from the Persian Gulf War.
Alphabet Soup
In the decade since the war, when Iraq's weakness and Washington's support could have fostered a strong opposition force, the dissidents have remained an alphabet soup of competing and discordant interest groups. Among the dozen or so major Iraqi opposition groups, top players include the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Iraqi National Accord (INA) and the SCIRI.
There also are about 60 smaller dissident organizations, as well as hundreds of individuals -- exiles, dissidents and traitors -- who work more or less independently against Mr. Hussein from abroad. The most senior military defector is Nizar al- Khazraji, a former Iraqi army chief of staff, who now lives in Denmark and is being investigated for his role in the use of poison gas against Kurdish rebels and civilians in the 1980s. More typical is Ismail al-Qaderi, an Iraqi electrical engineer and a member of the left-leaning, pro-Syrian wing of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party. He fled Iraq during the 1970s and has hopped around the Middle East, been jailed in a Persian Gulf sheikdom and has now found political asylum in London.
Many dissidents have suffered brutally at the hands of Mr. Hussein. The Iraqi dictator learned ruthlessness when he was in charge of crushing dissent before becoming president in 1979, and he has survived several coup attempts since then. Ayad Allawi, secretary general of the INA, is a former doctor who survived a machete attack by Iraqi agents in his London home in 1978. In just two days in 1983, the Iraqi regime killed 16 relatives in Iraq of leading rebel Baqir al- Hakim, who is backed by Iran. When dissident Gen. Najib al-Salihi, who lives in Virginia, seemed to be gaining U.S. favor in 2000, he received a video of a female relative being raped by Iraqi security agents. As U.S. threats against Baghdad have grown in recent months, Iraqi satellite TV has aired footage of opponents' families still in the country.
But shared persecution hasn't forged solidarity. Opposition groups have launched venomous attacks on each other regularly, often triggered by shifting U.S. favor. Mr. Chalabi has accused the INA of monopolizing the heart and dollars of the Central Intelligence Agency, which was once a big benefactor of his INC. Mr. Allawi has charged Mr. Chalabi with paying journalists to write unfavorable stories about him -- something Mr. Chalabi denies. Two splinter opposition outfits that both took the name Islamic Action Group are bickering over who has the rights to it. A founding member of the INC, Hani al-Fekaiki, summed up four decades of Iraqi opposition in the title to his autobiographical book: "Dens of Defeat," published shortly before his death in 1995.
Mr. Chalabi's personal history reflects the winding path of the opposition. In early 1992, after the Persian Gulf War, Mr. Chalabi won U.S. support for a drive to unify Iraqi opposition groups. He was the son of a prominent family from the era of the Iraqi monarchy before 1958. He had a taste for tweed jackets, a mathematics doctorate from the University of Chicago and a keen feel for the U.S. political system.
That year, he helped organize a gathering in Salahuddin, a town just 250 miles north of Baghdad in the part of northern Iraq liberated during the war and called Iraqi Kurdistan. The 200 delegates were an impressive cross-section of Iraqi society: Islamists and secularists, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Arabs, communists and generals. A three-man presidency was elected -- one Kurd, one Sunni Arab and one Shia Arab, each representing one of Iraq's three main ethnic and religious communities. Mr. Chalabi was chosen to head a 25- man executive committee.
The INC's ability to operate so close to Baghdad was dependent on the Kurds, an ethnic population split into two main factions, the KDP and the PUK, that were both members of the INC coalition. When the factions began fighting over money and turf in 1994, Mr. Hussein moved quickly to fan the competition, sending emissaries to both Kurdish groups with offers of trade concessions and political favors.
Mr. Chalabi at first managed to avoid taking sides, and even negotiated truces in which his INC platoons became respected peacekeepers. But relations among the three groups soured in March 1995 when the KDP backed out of an INC-led attack on Mr. Hussein's front lines at the last moment.
In August 1996, the KDP invited Mr. Hussein's army into Kurdistan to oust rival PUK fighters from Arbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital. Mr. Hussein took the opportunity to target INC safe houses and bases in the city, as well. The Iraqis killed 50 of the several thousand INC fighters. A further 100 were captured and executed. The INC retreated to London and to the half of Kurdistan controlled by the PUK -- only to be asked by the PUK to leave a year later as Mr. Hussein ratcheted up pressure.
At Odds
The Iraqi Kurds have remained at odds with the INC on many issues, including how to oust Mr. Hussein, since 1992, when the protection of Western jet fighters and U.N. food supplies enabled them to establish a relatively stable, autonomous government. For the same reason, both the KDP and PUK have refused to join any assault on Baghdad this year without U.S.-backed guarantees that they would maintain at least their present degree of federal autonomy.
After Mr. Hussein's move against them in 1996, about 700 INC activists and fighters were evacuated to the U.S., along with 6,000 pro- Western Iraqi Kurds. INC headquarters moved to a warren of offices near Harrods. The same year, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq were modified to allow Mr. Hussein to trade the country's oil for food and services. He used the program to bestow favors on neighboring states. In return, dissident groups charge, countries such as such as Syria, Iran, Turkey and Jordan clamped down on opposition activities inside their borders.
Turkey-Iraq trade soared, reaching about $1 billion last year from almost nothing after the Gulf War, and Ankara restricted travel by Kurdish dissidents over its border with Iraq. A Turkish official said there was no quid pro quo. After Iraq opened an illicit oil pipeline to Syria, Damascus opened discussions with Iraq on security cooperation. Two months ago it closed down Iraqi opposition newspapers operating in Syria, including one distributed by the INC. Syrian officials declined to comment.
Iraqi dissidents were also largely driven from Jordan, once Mr. Chalabi's home, after the U.N. allowed Jordan to import from Iraq nearly all the crude oil it needs at a discount, making Baghdad Jordan's biggest trading partner. A Jordanian spokesman says, "An office for the Iraqi opposition was shut down in Jordan because of accusations that Jordan was interfering with Iraq's internal affairs."
Since 1996, the opposition has increasingly directed its energies toward the U.S. Mr. Chalabi, whose biggest Washington backers include powerful Republican senators such as Jesse Helms and top civilian Defense officials, was a key lobbyist for passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. The bill gave the Defense Department $97 million to train and equip the Iraqi opposition, and the State Department $43 million to fund opposition activities. Funds, almost all from the State Department allotment, began flowing to the INC in 1999.
In October of that year, the U.S. picked up the tab for a meeting of 350 opposition figures at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Mr. Chalabi maintained his seat on the INC's leadership council, but many opposition groups decided to stay out of the INC framework after that. "After New York, we thought the INC was finished. It is not our vehicle," says Mr. Allawi.
By early last year, Mr. Allawi's INA and the SCIRI were coordinating their own meetings in London with the two Kurdish factions. In opposition circles, the U.S. was viewed as anointing this bloc when it was invited to meetings at the State and Defense departments in Washington earlier this year. "The INC risks being marginalized," says Mr. Mack of the Middle East Institute. Mr. Chalabi now deals with U.S. accountants sent to monitor the expenditure of about $12 million that Congress doled out to the INC.
In May, the U.S. State Department took over from the INC the role of coordinating among opposition groups. "There's a feeling we need to be at the center of this," says Greg Sullivan, a department spokesman. Bringing six main opposition groups together with the State and Defense departments in Washington this month marked a new high point in these efforts at coordination. The participants agreed on a larger conference, possibly next month in Europe.
But while many dissidents welcome the U.S. leadership, some worry that the intense U.S. involvement could taint the opposition as American lackeys and spoil any chance of its gaining credibility in Iraq.
"Since 1991, everything has been going downhill for these groups," says Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former intelligence chief for Saudi Arabia, who paid for the very first opposition conclave in Beirut in 1991. "Every time they meet, they tend to splinter more.