Monday, July 29, 2002

Iraqi exiles on diverse courses

by pv vivekanand

AGREEMENT among the six major groups of Iraqi dissidents is key to any US plan to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, but Washington might find it elusive not only because of the uncertainties of its campaign and regional undercurrents but also the conflicting agendas of the various parties to the oust-Saddam scenario before, during and after it is played out.
Without a unified approach grouping the six factions representing the political and military segments of Iraqis they claim to represent, it is a no-go for the US to implement its plans. Latest reports speak of a purported plan to launch a sudden invasion of Iraq in October and achieve its objectives before the end of the year.
Washington, worried by clear signs of divisions among the groups, has invited their leaders for talks on Aug. 9, but the change in fundamentals that are vital to an agreement among them is unlikely by October or beyond as long as the US does not make it clear whom it wants to install as Saddam's successor i.e. in the hypothesis that it manages to topple the Iraqi president and assumes a position of strength where it could call the shots in Baghdad.
Apart from the problems in trying to find common ground among the diverse agendas of the dissident groups, it would be very difficult for the US to achieve parity between its own "political and strategic as well as oil interests" in Iraq with the interests of Iraqi exiles at this stage with a view to ensuring that an Uncle Sam man is installed in Baghdad.
The six invited to the Washington meeting are:
Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr Al Hakim, leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Ahmed Chalabi, chairman of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), Sharif Ali Hussein of the INC, Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) based in northern Iraq, Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and also based in northern Iraq, and Iyad Alawi of the Iraqi National Accord , which claims to represent dissident Iraqi army officers from all sects in the country.
Each of these six men represents distinct and conflicting interests, and none of them is likely to join meaningful alliances without guarantees that their interests would be protected. But the US would not be able to provide that guarantee with convincing assurances because of the very disparity in their respective positions.
The only cause they share is the ouster of Saddam, and it's anyone's guess how these groups plan to behave in the run-up to the hypothetical ouster of Saddam and in a post-Saddam Iraq.
It is not clear who would attend the Washington meeting.
It is unlikely that SCIRI would accept the invitation but all others are likely to.
In Damascus, the Syrian representative of SCIRI, Bayan Jabber, said his group was invited but had not decided if it would attend. Others have indicated they might go.
In any scenario, Iranian-backed Ayatollah Hakim will seek to ensure that the majority Shiites of Iraq would have a dominant say in the future of a post-Saddam Iraq, but the US, wary of Hakim's Iranian connections, would not want to see Shiite domination of Iraqi affairs.
It is also unclear how Hakim could find compatibility between joining an alliance for military action against Iraq and Tehran's vehement rejection of such a course of events.
Obviously, Iran feels that it could be the next target for American action after Iraq, and Tehran could be counted on to do everything in its power to throw a spanner in the works to ensure that Washington does not achieve its objectives in Iraq. That is arguably one of the strongest wild cards in the equation.
Chalabi and Sharif Hussein claim to represent the democratic school among Iraqis, but the INC's influence among its constituents is limited. Reports from Washington indicate that officials do not trust the INC, particularly when it comes to funds.
Chalabi, who fled Jordan in 1988 in a $300 million scandal after operating a bank there for more than 10 years, has been accused of diverting anti-Saddam US funds.
Chalabi has boasted to this writer, immediately after the war of 1991, that the day was near when he would occupy the presidential palace in Baghdad while one of his old-time lieutenants -- chief foreign exchange dealer at his collapsed Petra Bank in Jordan -- would be his "finance minister."
Sharif Hussein is a descendant of the Hashemite family which ruled Iraq until it was ousted in a bloody coup in 1958, and he has remained a mysterious figure playing his cards close to his chest despite his role in the INC as leader of the small Constitutional Monarchy Movement.
Chalabi and Sharif Hussein are known not to see eye-to-eye on many issues, but the two have tried to put up a picture of close alliance in recent times, and that the US found it fit to invite both of them to the Aug. 9 meeting is an implicit recognition of the differences between them.
Talabani and Barzani, the Kurdish leaders who hold sway in northern Iraq -- or what they call Kurdistan -- under an uneasy alliance after bitter fighting, claim to represent the interests of the nearly five million Kurds living in Iraq.
Doubts are cast on their political inclinations after they worked out a modus videndi under American pressure. The two are the two main powers in the northern Iraq, which is beyond the control of the Baghdad government.
The two groups seem to be more interesting in collecting taxes and tolls from local residents as well as Baghdad-bound vehicles passing through their territory with goods and back across the border to Turkey with oil in violation of the UN sanctions against Iraq.
The KDP is known to be flirting with Baghdad and it was with Saddam's army support that the group managed to consolidate its grip in the north after a round of fierce fighting in 1996.
Both Talabani and Barzani are likely to be wary of any US plan to topple the Saddam regime without assurances that their fiefdoms would not be challenged and their revenues are guaranteed. Equally important, they would demand iron-clad promises that the US would not desert them and leave them in the lurch half-way through military action against Saddam.
In return, the US would demand from them a pledge that they would not seek to secede from Iraq and to set up an "independent and sovereign Kurdistan" -- the dream of the 30 million Kurds scattered in the region but anathema to Turkey, Syria and Iran.
It is easy to figure out why such an entity would be rejected by the region's countries. The so-called Kurdistan in northern Iraq represents, according to a nationalist Kurdish website, only 18 per cent of the "Kurdish homeland." The rest of the territory, it says, was usurped following World War I: Turkey took 43 per cent of the followed by Iran (31 per cent), Syria (six per cent) and the former Soviet Union (two per cent).
With sizeable Kurdish populations in these areas, fears are strong that "Kurdistan" would not be happy to remain in the 18 per cent in Iraq.
Finances are also expected to play a major influencing role the choices of the Kurdish groups.
Under the UN's oil-for-food programme with Iraq, the Kurds living under KDP and PUK control in the north get 17 per cent of the proceeds from exports of Iraqi oil under UN supervision. This has helped improve the post-war lot the Kurds and indirectly boosted the standing of Talabani and Barzani. As such, neither of them is likely to upset the applecart without ensuring that their constituencies would not be deprived of the relative improvement in life brought about by the oil proceeds.
Iyad Alawi of the Iraqi National Accord says he represents dissident Iraqi officers both in and out of the country. His group was once seen closer to the US (it was under American pressure the late king Hussein of Jordan allowed Alawi to open an office in Amman in 1996).
Obviously, according to sources close to the Iraqi National Accord, the group believes that the military should be in control of Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the hoped-for ouster of Saddam.
Without a strong military grip throughout Iraq, the group reportedly argues, the country would simply disintegrate.
The Iraqi National Accord claims the support of top Iraqi officers who deserted the country after the 1991 war and also of that of many who continue to serve the regime. The claim has never been put to test.
Thrown into the bargain are assertions by Iraqi exiles that Washington has already shortlisted some 15 former Iraqi generals and would designate one of them to take over Baghdad as Saddam's succesor.
Obviously, it implies that democracy is far from the US mind in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Lending credit to that argument is the complaint by the INC that despite its "commitment" to democracy Washington is not giving it the due consideration it thinks it deserves.
One of those "shortlisted" generals is said to be former army chief Nizar Al Khasraji who served as Iraq's army chief of staff when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. He fled Iraq after the 1991 war and now lives in Copenhagen. The US plans involving him appear to have suffered a setback after the Dutch government launched an investigation into charges that he led an Iraqi military campaign against Kurds after the eight-year Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988.
The US accuses Saddam and some of his close associates of war crimes for the anti-Kurd operations and it would be out of place for Washington to continue to groom Khasraji after limelight has fallen on him as one of those who had masterminded and carried out the alleged crimes against Kurds.
The deep splits among the Iraqi exiles over aspirations for power and strategies forced the INC to call off plans to announce a "government in exile" on Saturday.
The fundamental difference is over who should be named as what in the "government in exile." It is widely perceived that the line-up would be followed in as and when -- and of course "if" -- the "exiles" move into Baghdad. As such, naming the "functionaries" would be as good as tipping the hands of the various groups. Beyond that is the reality that most of those who are left out would opt to remain outside the coalition and might even try to torpedo its moves.
Furthermore, there are some who want a role in running Iraq but are not ready to emerge into the open yet, and they, if the exiles are to be believed, include a few within the Saddam regime who would be signing their fate if prematurely identified as sympathisers of the anti-Saddam campaign.
The difficulties and differences facing the Iraqi exile groups were no more pronounced than when they could not even announce in public the names of the members of a committee they elected at their recent London meeting and they could not agree on who should chair it.
Against the array of divergent interests and agendas, it would be an almost miracle if the US managed to cobble the exiles together into a coherent alliance with the potential to serve its interests in Iraq -- that is, indeed, not to mention the fundamental fault lines in the US approach in defiance of Arab and international public opinion against its plans to oust the leadership of a sovereign country.