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Will Saddam’s replacement be any better?
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LONDON,
September 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The failure of the
U.S. to prepare for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is hindering any
chances of support from the Iraqi people and army in any attempt to
oust him, a former head of the Iraqi army told BBC Radio 4 Monday,
September 23.
General
Nizar Al-Khazraji was the Chief of General Staff when Iraq invaded
Kuwait in 1991, and is one of the three men that the United States is
eyeing as a possible successor to Saddam’s throne.
If
U.S. President George W. Bush’s problem with Iraq is the danger the
current regime represents, the contenders for Saddam Hussein are
corrupt, feckless, and downright dangerous, possibly making the
“Butcher of Baghdad” look good, a U.K. newspaper said Sunday,
September 22.
Calling
the list of possible heirs to the Iraqi leadership a “rogues
gallery”, the Sunday Herald pointed out that “ever since the
September 11 attacks ‘regime change’ has been the catchphrase
coming out of Washington.”
However,
the paper said, the political situation of a post-Saddam Iraq will be
no less difficult than that of Afghanistan, and may in fact be even
more so as there is no equivalent to the Northern Alliance in Iraq.
Profiling
three possible successors, the paper said that according to human
rights groups, General Al-Khazraji was the man who in 1988 led a
48-hour chemical weapons attack which poisoned and killed up to 5000
Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja.
Eighty
nine Kurdish and human rights groups as well as the Danish ministry of
justice are calling for Al-Khazraji to be tried for war crimes.
Al-Khazraji
denies his involvement and claims that he is being smeared not just by
Saddam, but also by other opposition groups who fear his popularity.
In
the interview, Al-Khazraji “produced documentation from
Kurdish groups
absolving him from responsibility and also documents issued by Saddam
showing that responsibility for dealing with the Kurds was given to
Ali Hasan al-Majid - also known as Chemical Ali.”
This
is the same man who David Mack, a senior official in the U.S. State
Department who coordinates meetings of Iraqi opposition groups,
believes has “the right ingredients” as a future leader in Iraq.
Al-Khazraji
warned that the Iraqi people “may not support America if they fear
they will lose their independence after the ousting of Saddam”, BBC
Radio 4 reported.
He
added that the idea that the U.S. will stay in Iraq to rebuild the
country was a dangerous one. “It
will be a very dark future for all.”
“Some
say we will stay 20 or 30 years to control the country and control the
oil. All this damages the will of the people to overthrow the
regime” Khazarji claimed, saying that now “most of the people and
the armed forces are afraid that the future will be even worse” and
that “the Iraqis must be sure there will be a democratic regime
after the overthrow of the Saddam and that Iraq will be an independent
country,” the BBC reported.
Another
possible successor to Saddam Hussein’s throne is Brigadier-General
Najib Al-Salihi. Al-Salihi was the commander of the armored division
of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard during the Gulf War, playing a
significant role in the invasion of Kuwait, the Sunday Herald
reported.
He
was also involved in crushing an uprising against Saddam’s rule that
followed the Gulf War. “The repressive way in which this particular
episode was handled caused 1.5 million people to flee their homes,
while Salihi went on to write a book about his crushing of the popular
uprising, entitled Al-Zilzal, ‘The Earthquake’.”
While
on the one hand Al-Salihi says that the military should not be engaged
in the politics of Iraq, he also heads the CIA- sponsored Iraqi Free
Officers Movement, a collection of military exiles in the U.S., which
he claims can raise 30,000 fighters.
“Salihi
avoids giving the impression of power-hungriness and speaks of the
‘tough work ahead’ and the ‘bond of trust with the Iraqi
people’. The same Iraqi people he so mercilessly crushed when they
opposed Saddam,” the paper pointed out.
The
last possible heir to the Iraqi throne that the Sunday Herald
profiled is Ahmad Al-Chalabi, who came to the limelight in 1989 when
he fled to London from Jordan amid allegations that he had embezzled
millions from the bank he owned.
The
collapse of the Petra Bank left thousands of its clients in poverty. A
former math professor, Al-Chalabi did not attend his trial in Jordan
and was sentenced in absentia to 32 years in prison – a sentence
that can only be carried out if he returns to Jordan.
Chalabi
took the reins of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella
organization created in 1992 with the assistance of the CIA.
In
1999 Al-Chalabi was officially demoted to become a member of the
INC’s executive council rather than its leader, but he is still
spoken of by INC officials as the future president of Iraq.
This
is despite the fact that the U.S. State Department recently found that
about $2 million of the $4 million it had given to the INC was not
properly accounted for.
Al-Chalabi,
however, “galvanized his U.S. supporters, and the Pentagon and the
White House again started picking up the tab,” the Sunday Herald
said.
Just
as he was beginning to be sidelined by the U.S. in the midst of more
accusations of financial irregularities, Al-Chalabi came up with a
plot to overthrow Saddam in an 11-week maneuver. Few people stopped to
question the plan, which involved turning untrained volunteers into
successful revolutionaries, as unrealistic.
“Convicted
embezzlers, accused war criminals and CIA stooges to a man, few if any
of those who would dethrone Saddam match up to the proverbial man on a
white horse, a respected military officer who can ride in, take
control and unite Iraq’s fractious tribes and religious groups,”
the Sunday Herald concluded.
Saddam
Hussein’s biographer, Said K. Aburish, a respected Middle Eastern
writer said, “I examined my notes of the interviews I conducted with
82 Iraqi opposition leaders, and began identifying those on my list
whose thinking resembles Saddam’s.”
“To
my horror, I decided 75 of the people I interviewed were men who would
kill to achieve their goal.”
