Saddam's Iraqi Foes Heartened By Clinton
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 16, 1998; Page A17
President Clinton's first explicit call for a "new government" in Baghdad and his pledge to implement a new plan for arming opponents of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein heartened opposition leaders yesterday. But Clinton's comments appeared to signal more of a heightened political effort to destabilize the Iraqi regime over time than any immediate military strategy for overthrowing it.
Senior administration officials said Clinton's words were intended to signal an "intensification" of support for a broad array of Iraqi opposition groups and in that sense represented a change in policy.
A British diplomat closely monitoring the Iraq crisis called Clinton's expression of support for Iraqi opposition groups in an effort to help create a new regime in Baghdad "one policy change we've seen out of this weekend." The diplomat called the shift "a more forward-leaning American move to go beyond containment."
But Defense Secretary William S. Cohen made it clear that Clinton's vow of support for the Iraqi Liberation Act -- a congressional initiative that makes $97 million in military support available to the Iraqi opposition -- did not mean that such aid would be provided to opposition groups any time soon.
"He was not calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein," Cohen told reporters at the White House. "What he was saying is that we are prepared and will work with opposition forces or groups to try to bring about in some future time a more democratic type of regime."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/iraq111698b.htmEven Cohen knew clinton was all words, no substance. As Madeline Albright said yesterday, "We talked and talked about it."