|
Bush
Administration Restores Funding For Iraqi Opposition
WASHINGTON,
Jan. 31 (IslamOnline& News Agencies) - The United States put its money where
its mouth is on Wednesday and agreed to restore full funding for the opposition
Iraqi National Congress (INC), which aims to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.
U.S.
President George W. Bush had signaled a more aggressive approach to Iraq in his
State of the Union address on Tuesday, when he dubbed Iraq, Iran and North Korea
as an "axis of evil."
Most
of the funding had been suspended because of disputes between the INC and the
State Department over audits for money the organization had received earlier.
"We
have renewed the funding at previous levels," said a State Department
official, who asked not to be named. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
approved the continued funding, another official said.
The
INC will receive about $800,000 a month for the next three months, instead of
the reduced payment of $500,000 it received during January, one official said.
According
to an official, the INC and the State Department had yet to sort out all the
auditing problems but would keep working on them even while full funding
resumed.
The
leader of a prominent Iraqi opposition group said Wednesday he was "very,
very encouraged" by Bush's remarks on Iraq in his State of the Union
address and was confident of firm U.S. support in their aim to oust Saddam
Hussein.
Ahmed
Shalabi, head of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, told reporters after
a meeting at the State Department that Washington's number three diplomat had
assured him that regime change in Iraq was a priority of U.S. foreign policy.
"The
message was very clear: that as long as Saddam Hussein's regime supported
terrorism, whether as weapons of mass destruction or as international terrorism,
the United States would not tolerate that," Shalabi said.
"We
regard that as a very good position for us, because it is the Iraqi people who
suffer from the terror of Saddam Hussein, and we look forward to greater and
stronger cooperation with the United States on this."
Shalabi
claimed the opposition had 40,000 men under arms in the Kurdish-controlled north
of Iraq but needed U.S. guarantees of protection before they took the offensive
to topple Saddam Hussein.
The
delegation met Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman and
William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.
The
delegation also has appointments with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, an INC source said.
The
small amount, much of which runs the INC headquarters in London, is unlikely to
shift the balance of power between the INC and the Baghdad government, which
commands a formidable fighting force.
Some
U.S. officials have dismissed INC leaders as armchair revolutionaries out of
touch with their homeland. But others believe that northern areas controlled by
the Kurdish elements of the INC could act as the springboard for a military
campaign backed by U.S. air power.
"As
long as the Iraqi opposition is not solid, it doesn't matter," said Thabit
Abdullah, an Iraqi scholar, who is also a history professor at York University
in Toronto, Canada. "The Iraqi National Congress is completely bankrupt
inside Iraq. It has no internal base. The only thing that keeps it afloat is its
support from Britain and the U.S., not even from the rest of Europe."
In
the year since Bush took office, his administration has never taken a firm
decision to back the INC and mount an operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who
survived the military campaign led by Bush's father in 1991.
But
in his speech on Tuesday, Bush took the United States closer to conflict, saying
Iraq and the other countries were a threat to the U.S. and its allies. “I will
not wait on events while danger gathers. I will not stand by as peril draws
closer and closer,” he added.
Critics
of a proposed U.S.-backed plan to oust Saddam Hussein say the task in Iraq is
far harder than Afghanistan’s Taliban. Even after its defeat in the 1991 Gulf
War, the Iraqi military has had little trouble defeating uprisings by opposition
groups.
Another
obstacle is that Kurdish leaders in control of northern Iraq have refused to
permit military sorties against the Iraqi army until they are sure Baghdad
cannot retaliate. Some analysts argue that the Bush administration has
squandered past opportunities to topple the Iraqi regime, which have cast doubts
about its real policy goals.
"I
don't really think U.S. interests toward Iraq are for major change," said
Thabit Abdullah. "I think they want to keep the status quo. A major change
would open a Pandora's box for a lot of issues they don't want to deal with the
possible influence of Iran, prolonged political instability or the Kurdish
nationalism."
He
argued that the current Iraqi regime provided useful justification for
maintaining U.S. troops in the region, as well as billion of dollars in arms and
military training to weak Persian Gulf states, even though the Iraqi army is a
shadow of what is was before the Gulf War.
"Saddam
Hussein is not a threat and is not causing a major threat to U.S. interests in
the region," Adbullah said.
With
additional reporting By S.M. Khalid
|
