Bickering within the US administration, lack of regional support and divisions in the Iraqi opposition may delay Bush's declared objective of toppling Saddam Hussein, reports Salah Hemeid In the 11 years since the Gulf War ended, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has said that he has always considered himself at war with the United States. During that period, Washington has spoken of Hussein as an arch enemy and a threat, though only implementing a policy of containment through UN economic sanctions and political isolation. But after the 11 September attacks and within the context of US President George W Bush's war against terrorism, the Iraq question has moved to the forefront of American foreign policy. In a speech he delivered at the West Point Military Academy on 1 June, Bush unveiled a new policy doctrine under which the US reserves the right to take pre-emptive action against threats of terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This strategy is widely seen as setting the stage for launching a military campaign to oust Hussein. Bush has repeatedly said that a change of leadership in Iraq will remain a core goal of his administration although he made it clear that the US has not adopted a specific plan. While Bush's senior aides agree publicly on the need to oust Hussein, reports have proliferated about the existence of divergent views within the administration about how far the US should wade into the Iraqi quagmire. On the one hand, there are the hawkish officials who are pressuring the president to oust Hussein at any price, and on the other, there are the so-called doves who prefer a more cautious approach. Reports in the American press have suggested that Bush's foreign policy and military teams are sharply divided over what strategy should be adopted to remove Hussein from power, with some officials expecting any attempts in this respect to fail. Three approaches to ousting the Iraqi president have been discussed: providing logistical and intelligence support to his enemies in the hopes of inciting a mutiny within his military circle; providing air- and limited ground-support for an assault by opposition groups; or an outright American invasion. The New York Times reported last week that the more limited plan using American Special Forces working with opposition forces on the ground, along the lines of the Afghanistan model, has strong proponents among civilians at the Pentagon and within the president's National Security Council. Senior military commanders, however, argue that the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan are vast and view that approach to be naive. According to The Times, the chiefs insisted that an invasion would require at least 200,000 troops with a prolonged occupation in a post- Hussein Iraq. They have also expressed concerns that the Iraqi president might use biological or chemical weapons against US forces. This assessment of the risks by military officials, especially by General Tommy R Franks who, as commander of the Central Command would oversee any military action against Iraq, has irritated many in Washington's civilian defence establishment who have been pushing for an assault on Baghdad since 11 September. "These regimes that looked unchallengeable turn out to be highly brittle," Douglas Feith, under-secretary of defence and probably the most hawkish official on Iraq, said early this month. Feith and others are said to favour a version of the highly successful airborne assault on Afghanistan to unseat the Iraqi leader. They criticise General Franks for excessive and outdated reliance on ground troops. Feith is not without supporters. Among those sharing his view is the independent defence analyst, Richard Perle, who has said: "If we'd left it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1990, Saddam Hussein would still be in Kuwait." The strongest advocates of an Afghanistan-style strategy are Pentagon civilians, led by Deputy Defence Secretary Paul D Wolfowitz and General Wayne A Downing, the White House's deputy national security advisor for fighting terrorism. Some State Department officials who agree on the need to remove the Iraqi leader are, however, providing the president with different assessments of Hussein's strength and the US's ability to force him out through limited means. They believe that launching a ground offensive against Iraq at this time would represent an enormous and terrible strategic blunder in the war against terrorism. Some opposing voices in Congress were also heard arguing that a premature strike against Iraq could rupture the international coalition against terrorism and promote an anti-American backlash. Similar worry has been expressed abroad. French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Bush of their concerns about attacks on Iraq during his European tour last month and were expected to repeat them at the Group of Eight (G8) summit, which opened in Canada this week. Moderate Arab leaders who face increasing popular opposition to the military action against Iraq have also rejected the offensive, signalling to Washington that they cannot afford to get involved in military operations against an Arab country. Most significantly, Iraqi opposition groups whom the United States could rely on in the event that Hussein were ousted have been expressing concern about the bureaucratic infighting in the administration to the extent that some have even begun to express doubt about Washington's commitment to overthrow Hussein. Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls major parts of northern Iraq and who is considered a formidable political and military force among the Iraqi opposition, expressed scepticism about the US's plans which he said "might only replace one dictator with another". Barzani and his chief rival, Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, reportedly met in Germany in April with senior US officials including General Downing, apparently to coordinate their moves. Early this month, leaders of a coalition of Iraqi groups that some US officials have touted as an alternative to Saddam Hussein's government, including members of Barzani's and Talabani's groups, met for the first time in Washington with Feith and Marc Grossman, the US under-secretary for political affairs. The meetings, which included representatives of the main Shi'ite group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), as well as the Iraqi National Record, marked a significant step forward in Washington's strategies to remove Hussein from power. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the discussions with these factions, better known as the Group of Four, aimed to review "a common theme of the anti-Saddam strategy" and to agree on "how Iraq should be organised in the post-Hussein era". Hamid Al-Bayati, who represented SCIRI in the discussions, told Al- Ahram Weekly from Washington that "the encounter showed signs of serious undertakings and that the Bush administration is on the move to get rid of Saddam". Curiously enough, there is one main omission in Bush's scheming against Hussein, according to observers: the weary Iraqis who while looking forward to rebuilding their once prosperous nation which was turned by both the regime and the nearly 12-year-long economic sanctions into a backwater, seem sceptical about the latest chapter in their history, currently being written in Washington. The aspirations of many Iraqis who once looked for outside help to get rid of Hussein have been replaced by deep-seated suspicion and anger.
