Targeting Baghdad: What the Iraqi opposition thinks

Saddam’s opponents say ‘no’ to US blitz but, for some, it’s not definite

While US President George W. Bush ponders whether to use the current “war on terror” to complete his father’s “unfinished business” in Iraq, major Iraqi opposition groups for the most part say that they are strongly against the use of American air power to try to overthrow the regime of President Saddam Hussein.
Spokesmen for a variety of Iraqi opposition parties said that a US attack on their country whether launched on the pretext of Baghdad’s support for “terrorism” or its acquisition of weapons of mass destruction would compound the suffering of the people without necessarily dislodging the regime, and could well strengthen rather than weaken its hold on power. But while some dissident groups are adamantly opposed to any American military operation, others appear prepared to go along with one, provided it seriously aims to destroy the regime rather than merely deal it a blow, as has been the case with the various Anglo-American air strikes it has been subjected to since the 1991 Gulf war.
The latter category includes the American-backed Iraqi National Congress, nominally an umbrella organization for opposition factions, which in the past has championed the idea of using American military protection to carve out a “safe haven” in Iraqi territory from which putative opposition forces could mount a guerrilla campaign against the regime. The INC’s London-based spokesman, Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, said that Washington deems a confrontation with the Iraqi leader’s regime “inevitable” but has not yet decided how to proceed. Commenting on President Bush’s remarks on Monday, in which he implied that Iraq could face military action if it did not readmit UN arms inspectors, he said the INC would not favor an attack that sufficed with “punishing the regime” and would reject one that targets the country’s “armed forces or infrastructure.” Rather, the INC “calls for the Iraqi people to be helped to topple the regime,” he was quoted as saying by the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. The INC theoretically includes two main Iraqi Kurdish parties that share control of northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. They have long sought to balance their uneasy coexistence with the central government in Baghdad against their need to retain the good will of the US, whose aerial policing of the “no-fly zone” above their enclave they see as the ultimate guarantor of their defense. They maintain that while they want political change in Iraq and a federal system under which the Kurdish areas would enjoy greater autonomy, they won’t be party to attempts to overthrow the regime by external force.
Thus the PUK said in a statement responding to Bush’s latest remarks that while there was a desperate need for “democratic change” in Iraq, “such change cannot be brought about by means of foreign conspiracies, indiscriminate bombing, or the plotting of military coups.” That would “inflict enormous harm on the Iraqi people and lead to a repeat of the tragedies we have suffered for so long,” it said. The leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), Sayyed Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, for his part, said during a visit to Kuwait Monday that a US attack on Iraq would be a “natural” development in Washington’s “war on terror.”
“The Iraqi regime is a terrorist regime, which has used chemical and biological weapons and continues to hold on to them. And from this perspective, it is a natural thing for it to be targeted as part of the war on terror,” he remarked. He added that he had no knowledge of the Americans’ intentions in this context and had had no contact with them about the matter. “Rather, we have our own plan for changing matters in Iraq so that the Iraqi people can rule in place of the regime’s tyrannical dictatorship.” But Hakim’s spokesman, Dr. Hamed al-Bayyati, said the SAIRI leader’s remark in no way implied support for prospective American bombardment. “American military action would not be to the advantage of change in Iraq, of the Iraqi opposition or the people,” he said. “Regimes aren’t removed by air strikes,” he explained, adding that the idea of Washington providing military support for a “safe haven” in southern Iraq that could be used as a springboard for overthrowing the regime was also a non-starter for purely practical reasons. Bayyati indicated that SAIRI was not necessarily opposed to the use of external military force against the regime, such as enforcement by the UN of its resolutions demanding that the Iraqi authorities stop repressing the population, but was against any “unilateral American action.”
He noted that previous American offensives against Iraq had not been intended to bring down the regime, and argued that Washington had no apparent plans for doing that now. It was instead hoping that an attack would trigger a coup from within the regime “by the military or security forces or a member of the ruling family,” and that is not the kind of change the Iraqi people aspire to, he said. A spokesman for Iraq’s other major Shiite Islamist opposition group, the Daawa Party, said an American attack would only make life harder for the long-suffering Iraqi people, and would provoke ferocious repression from the regime to pre-empt any popular uprising. “That the regime is terrorist and has destructive weapons is something no one disputes, but history has shown that bombing, destruction and sanctions do not lead to its collapse, but further compound the suffering of the Iraqi people,” said Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Jaafari added that if the international community wanted to promote political change in Iraq, it could do so by non-military means, such as indicting Iraqi leaders for war crimes. The failure to do so has left Iraqis unconvinced that the US really wants to replace the regime, as has the bitter memory of the 1991 uprising that immediately followed the Gulf war which Washington verbally encouraged, only to sit back and watch as it was mercilessly crushed by government forces. Jaafari also stressed that it was wrong-headed to think that because intensive American air strikes against Afghanistan led to the collapse of the Taleban regime, that the same could apply to Iraq, emphasizing that the social fabric of, and power structure in, the two countries is so different as to make comparisons invalid. Similar views were expressed by Sobhi al-Jumaili of the Iraqi Communist Party, who said that while an American attack on his country looked likely, it would not serve the interests of the Iraqi people or the cause of political change in the country. “We have always been against the military option and continue to be. Changing the regime is the responsibility of the Iraqi people,” he said. External powers could help by lending “political and moral support” to the Iraqi people and opposition above all by lifting the draconian UN economic sanctions, which he argued were strengthening the regime’s hold on power and making the people suffer. Jumaili said sanctions should be decoupled from the issue of disarmament, and the international community should seek to enforce the UN Security Council resolution upholding human rights in Iraq while continuing to subject the government to diplomatic isolation and an arms embargo. Jumaili also urged the US to “stop interfering in the affairs of the Iraqi opposition” to suit its own purposes, charging that American meddling was impeding efforts to form an independent broad-based opposition front. “We are not counting on the external factor” as an agent for change, he said.

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	2. 12. 2001 \| The Daily Star Targeting Baghdad: What the Iraqi opposition thinks Saddam’s opponents say ‘no’ to US blitz but, for some, it’s not definite While US President George W. Bush ponders whether to use the current “war on terror” to complete his father’s “unfinished business” in Iraq, major Iraqi opposition groups for the most part say that they are strongly against the use of American air power to try to overthrow the regime of President Saddam Hussein. Spokesmen for a variety of Iraqi opposition parties said that a US attack on their country whether launched on the pretext of Baghdad’s support for “terrorism” or its acquisition of weapons of mass destruction would compound the suffering of the people without necessarily dislodging the regime, and could well strengthen rather than weaken its hold on power. But while some dissident groups are adamantly opposed to any American military operation, others appear prepared to go along with one, provided it seriously aims to destroy the regime rather than merely deal it a blow, as has been the case with the various Anglo-American air strikes it has been subjected to since the 1991 Gulf war. The latter category includes the American-backed Iraqi National Congress, nominally an umbrella organization for opposition factions, which in the past has championed the idea of using American military protection to carve out a “safe haven” in Iraqi territory from which putative opposition forces could mount a guerrilla campaign against the regime. The INC’s London-based spokesman, Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, said that Washington deems a confrontation with the Iraqi leader’s regime “inevitable” but has not yet decided how to proceed. Commenting on President Bush’s remarks on Monday, in which he implied that Iraq could face military action if it did not readmit UN arms inspectors, he said the INC would not favor an attack that sufficed with “punishing the regime” and would reject one that targets the country’s “armed forces or infrastructure.” Rather, the INC “calls for the Iraqi people to be helped to topple the regime,” he was quoted as saying by the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. The INC theoretically includes two main Iraqi Kurdish parties that share control of northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. They have long sought to balance their uneasy coexistence with the central government in Baghdad against their need to retain the good will of the US, whose aerial policing of the “no-fly zone” above their enclave they see as the ultimate guarantor of their defense. They maintain that while they want political change in Iraq and a federal system under which the Kurdish areas would enjoy greater autonomy, they won’t be party to attempts to overthrow the regime by external force. Thus the PUK said in a statement responding to Bush’s latest remarks that while there was a desperate need for “democratic change” in Iraq, “such change cannot be brought about by means of foreign conspiracies, indiscriminate bombing, or the plotting of military coups.” That would “inflict enormous harm on the Iraqi people and lead to a repeat of the tragedies we have suffered for so long,” it said. The leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), Sayyed Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, for his part, said during a visit to Kuwait Monday that a US attack on Iraq would be a “natural” development in Washington’s “war on terror.” “The Iraqi regime is a terrorist regime, which has used chemical and biological weapons and continues to hold on to them. And from this perspective, it is a natural thing for it to be targeted as part of the war on terror,” he remarked. He added that he had no knowledge of the Americans’ intentions in this context and had had no contact with them about the matter. “Rather, we have our own plan for changing matters in Iraq so that the Iraqi people can rule in place of the regime’s tyrannical dictatorship.” But Hakim’s spokesman, Dr. Hamed al-Bayyati, said the SAIRI leader’s remark in no way implied support for prospective American bombardment. “American military action would not be to the advantage of change in Iraq, of the Iraqi opposition or the people,” he said. “Regimes aren’t removed by air strikes,” he explained, adding that the idea of Washington providing military support for a “safe haven” in southern Iraq that could be used as a springboard for overthrowing the regime was also a non-starter for purely practical reasons. Bayyati indicated that SAIRI was not necessarily opposed to the use of external military force against the regime, such as enforcement by the UN of its resolutions demanding that the Iraqi authorities stop repressing the population, but was against any “unilateral American action.” He noted that previous American offensives against Iraq had not been intended to bring down the regime, and argued that Washington had no apparent plans for doing that now. It was instead hoping that an attack would trigger a coup from within the regime “by the military or security forces or a member of the ruling family,” and that is not the kind of change the Iraqi people aspire to, he said. A spokesman for Iraq’s other major Shiite Islamist opposition group, the Daawa Party, said an American attack would only make life harder for the long-suffering Iraqi people, and would provoke ferocious repression from the regime to pre-empt any popular uprising. “That the regime is terrorist and has destructive weapons is something no one disputes, but history has shown that bombing, destruction and sanctions do not lead to its collapse, but further compound the suffering of the Iraqi people,” said Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Jaafari added that if the international community wanted to promote political change in Iraq, it could do so by non-military means, such as indicting Iraqi leaders for war crimes. The failure to do so has left Iraqis unconvinced that the US really wants to replace the regime, as has the bitter memory of the 1991 uprising that immediately followed the Gulf war which Washington verbally encouraged, only to sit back and watch as it was mercilessly crushed by government forces. Jaafari also stressed that it was wrong-headed to think that because intensive American air strikes against Afghanistan led to the collapse of the Taleban regime, that the same could apply to Iraq, emphasizing that the social fabric of, and power structure in, the two countries is so different as to make comparisons invalid. Similar views were expressed by Sobhi al-Jumaili of the Iraqi Communist Party, who said that while an American attack on his country looked likely, it would not serve the interests of the Iraqi people or the cause of political change in the country. “We have always been against the military option and continue to be. Changing the regime is the responsibility of the Iraqi people,” he said. External powers could help by lending “political and moral support” to the Iraqi people and opposition above all by lifting the draconian UN economic sanctions, which he argued were strengthening the regime’s hold on power and making the people suffer. Jumaili said sanctions should be decoupled from the issue of disarmament, and the international community should seek to enforce the UN Security Council resolution upholding human rights in Iraq while continuing to subject the government to diplomatic isolation and an arms embargo. Jumaili also urged the US to “stop interfering in the affairs of the Iraqi opposition” to suit its own purposes, charging that American meddling was impeding efforts to form an independent broad-based opposition front. “We are not counting on the external factor” as an agent for change, he said. 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