Feb 10, 2001

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), billed as a
worthy cause under the Bush administration, faces major hurdles in its campaign to
overthrow President Saddam Hussein, analysts said.

The INC will have to secure a level of U.S. commitment sufficient to persuade Iraq's
neighbors that Washington is serious about carrying out the task that President Bush's father
shied away from after the Gulf War in 1991.

The leaders at the center of the INC must also persuade their Kurdish and Shi'ite Muslim
colleagues, who have real guerrilla forces, to cooperate with a central command and carry
out a coordinated plan, according to analysts.

Even then, success will probably depend, not on capturing Baghdad in street-to-street
fighting but on convincing Iraqi troops and Baath Party members that they have no future
under Saddam and that the time was come to defect, they added.

INC leaders, visiting Washington for the first time since President Bush took office on Jan.
20, say they are strongly encouraged by their contacts with the new administration.

"We feel this administration is much more serious about dealing with the Iraqi regime,"
Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the six-man INC leadership, said Friday.

"We are very optimistic. They have taken our ideas on board," added INC spokesman Sharif
Ali Bin Al Hussein.

ARMCHAIR REVOLUTIONARIES

The opposition leaders take heart from campaign statements by people in or close to the
Bush administration. Many Republicans accused the Clinton administration of failing to
give the INC the level of support it deserved.

The Clinton administration argued in private that none of Iraq's neighbors were willing to
endorse a strategy of "regime change" based on support for the opposition.

Clinton officials also did little to dispel the widespread impression that INC leaders were
armchair revolutionaries, more comfortable in London hotels than on the ground in Iraq.

Their opponents retorted that if the United States led the way and showed it was serious
about the INC, Arab states like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan would follow.

"What we have seen is a self-fulfilling prophecy," said former congressman Steven Solarz,
vice chairman of the International Crisis Group and an INC sympathizer.

"We don't give them support on the grounds that they're not effective, and they're not
effective because we haven't given them any support," he told Reuters.

But even if the United States does promote the INC, for example by giving military training,
it is by no means clear that the organization will be on the path to success.

Hamid al-Bayati, London representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution
in Iraq (SCIRI), said the INC would need permission either from the Kurds or from Iran,
even for its preliminary plan to start operations inside Iraq.

KURDS IN HARM'S WAY

Historically the Kurds, who now run an autonomous enclave in the north, have borne the
brunt of Baghdad's retaliation whenever opposition activities collapse. They are naturally
wary of associating with adventurers.

"We cannot leave our people to the mercy of the consequences of such acts. It's premature,
given the consequences that could emerge," said a senior Kurdish politician, speaking by
telephone from Kurdistan.

The politician said the priority of the Kurdish authorities was to set up a model of
self-government in the north, with a high quality of life, rule of law and civil society.

"I would rather not push my people into jeopardy, into harm's way, into schemes that are not
well defined or credible. That would put people's lives in danger," he said.

"We are living in the region. We do not have the luxury of hotels in London. We have to be
very realistic and very cautious," the politician added.

This Kurdish hesitancy is a serious obstacle to the INC's ambitions, because the Kurdish
parties already have an experienced guerrilla force of some 10,000 fighters and their
territory is the natural springboard for INC operations.

Bayati, whose Tehran-based group already attacks Iraqi government targets in the south and
center of the country, says that to infiltrate Iraq from the south the INC needs Iranian
permission. "We don't know if they have that," he added.

WARY OF SHI'ITE REBELS

SCIRI's position, sympathetic to the INC's goals but critical of its dependence on U.S.
financial assistance, is symptomatic of the INC's difficulties.

"Overt U.S. support undermines the credibility of the INC, so we can't take part in its
activities," Bayati said.

Besides, as when Shi'ite Muslims rose in rebellion against Saddam in March 1991, the
United States is itself wary of helping exclusively Shi'ite groups, apparently for fear of
creating an Iranian-backed mini-state in the south of Iraq.

The INC and its sympathizers, heartened by the advent of the Bush administration, are now
recycling military proposals which made the rounds in the last years of the Clinton era.

The most popular is the idea of a liberated opposition enclave inside Iraq, protected by U.S.
air power, in which Iraqi army defectors could take refuge.

But the Bush administration has not even said if it likes the idea, let alone where it would be,
who would carve it out in the first place and how neighboring countries might react.

"Based on their past records, the Bush administration contains strong supporters of a more
robust approach, but it remains to be seen what they will do. My impression is they have not
yet decided," Solarz said.

"The INC does believe that the new administration is more serious," said Bayati. "But they
might not be as serious as we need them to be," he added.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com