Saddam's Position Is Tenuous, But Will U.S. Be Ready To Exploit It?

Insight Magazine ^ | July 22, 2002 | Douglas Burton and Jessica Davis

[Stand Watch Listen]

Just how much fight does Saddam Hussein's army have left in it? Not much, according to Gen. Najib Salhi, a top prospect to lead Iraq after Saddam has been driven from the scene. Salhi tells news alert! that Iraq's armed forces would put up little or no resistance to a determined assault by U.S.-backed troops. "There is no loyalty between the Iraqi army and Saddam, and there hasn't been since the Persian Gulf War," Salhi told members of Washington's Federal City Club in late June.

In fact, he says, "most units in the army are waiting for the right moment to surrender." That moment will come, he says, when the Iraqi army is attacked by a military force with the objective of toppling Saddam and with the capability of doing so.

Salhi commanded an Iraqi Republican Guard armored brigade until he defected in 1995. His brigade was stationed near Iraq's western border when Saddam sent units to crush opposition forces in northern Iraq. The general says he was hoping to switch sides then but, to his dismay, the rebellion received only tepid support from the Clinton administration and was put down before it could build into general rebellion. He defected later that year.

Salhi, who now lives in Jordan, is a member of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella coalition of Kurds, Shiite Muslims and other dissidents who have been on the receiving end of Saddam's brutality. There is concern in Washington, however, that INC may be on the verge of imploding just as the Bush administration has decided to make regime change in Baghdad a top priority.

Congress appropriated $97 million in 1998 to support an INC-led resistance movement within Iraq, but the Clinton State Department withheld the funds, noting a long-standing feud between INC chief Ahmed Chalabi and bosses at the CIA about who was responsible for a foiled anti-Saddam coup attempt in 1996. The State Department insisted the INC couldn't account for funds it already had been given.

In May the State Department informed Congress it would disburse $315,000 to another group, the newly formed Iraqi National Movement, a Sunni-led coalition of exiled Iraqi military and civilian leaders, according to UPI's Eli J. Lake. Meanwhile, the INC gets strong backing from the Department of Defense.

Salhi's faction in the INC coalition is the Movement of Free Iraqi Officers, which claims to maintain contact with anti-Saddam officers in the Iraqi military. Like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, Salhi hails from a large and influential clan in his country, and some see him as a consensus candidate to lead the Iraqi opposition. The trouble is that jealous rivals at State, Defense, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence services can't seem to agree on whom to support.

Douglas Burton is an associate editor and Jessica Davis is an intern for Insight.

[1Old Pro]

Let's Roll!

[TADSLOS]

Salhi commanded an Iraqi Republican Guard armored brigade until he defected in 1995. His brigade was stationed near Iraq's western border when Saddam sent units to crush opposition forces in northern Iraq. The general says he was hoping to switch sides then but, to his dismay, the rebellion received only tepid support from the Clinton administration and was put down before it could build into general rebellion. He defected later that year.

More evidence documenting Bill's war on terror.

[SteamshipTime]

Beware of Persians bearing gifts. Right now, Iraq is ruled by an isolated, aging Hussein who maintains a secular Sunni regime and allows Coptic Christians to worship. If the Iraqi army were this disinclined, this guy could do the job himself. He apparently can't, so he's seducing Washington to stage his coup for him. When it's over, Hussein will be dead and we'll be dealing with a lot of pissed-off Sunnis. The fanatical Shi'ite sect will dominate the new government, and the Kurds will insist on their payment: establishment of the new Kurdistan, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Naturally, their Turkish relatives will want to join, so we'll have to spend more money keeping Turkey, Turkish Kurds, Iraqi Kurds, and the new Shi'Ite Iraq quiescent.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

[First_Salute]

In five years, the irony will have Iraq our allies and Saudi's Arabia our enemies.

[SteamshipTime]

Then we'll declare war on the pederastic, opium-growing Northern Alliance.