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Saddam enemy warns against war
Leader of Shi'ites exiled in Iran says UN must authorise military action to protect
ordinary Iraqis from Saddam's wrath
Jonathan Steele in Tehran
Monday March 18, 2002
The Guardian
We don't agree with an American attack on Iraq. It will cause great damage and
suffering to ordinary people, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the spiritual and
political leader of Iraq's exiled Shi'ite community, told the Guardian at his heavily
guarded headquarters in central Tehran.
The ayatollah fled Iraq in 1980 and, with Iranian government support, set up the
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri).
Western governments estimate that Sciri has a force of between 7,000 and 15,000
men. The ayatollah provides political leadership but is not involved in military
operations or the group's bases and training camps close to the Iraqi border.
Sciri's units make sporadic raids on police stations and army positions inside Iraq.
Along with the Kurds in northern Iraq, they are the main armed opposition to Saddam
Hussein. During the Gulf war they mounted an uprising and fought fiercely against
the Iraqi army but felt betrayed when US-led forces pulled out in 1991, leaving them
at the mercy of Saddam, who exacted massive reprisals, sending a new generation
of Shi'ites to death and into exile.
It was vital for the UN to authorise military action against Iraq on the pattern of
Bosnia to prevent Saddam using heavy weapons against the Iraqi people, the
ayatollah said. He drew attention to UN resolution 688, passed after the Gulf war,
which called for UN intervention if Saddam used violence against civilians.
We believe the Iraqi people has the ability to change the regime if the international
community forces Saddam not to use heavy weapons against people, Ayatollah
Hakim said.
Sciri and the Kurds from the north can make the change.
The ayatollah's reluctance to endorse US strikes on Baghdad appears to be a retreat
from his position last autumn. It is partly in deference to the many Arab governments
which have warned the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, on his Middle Eastern tour,
not to inflame Arab opinion by taking unilateral measures.
It is also a response to anger in the Iranian government - which hosts the exiled
ayatollah - over President Bush's state of the union speech, which linked Iraq, Iran
and North Korea in a so-called axis of evil.
We don't agree with that speech, the ayatollah said yesterday. The Iraqi regime
has no counterpart in the world in terms of its terrorist activities. It uses chemical
weapons on its people, as well as massive repression. It is a dictatorship which
came to power in a military coup whereas the Iranian government came to power via
democracy and has regular elections.
Earlier this year, the ayatollah and his spokespeople compared their role in Iraq to
that of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, which overthrew the Taliban in alliance
with US airstrikes.
Yesterday, he said that Saddam was weaker than the Taliban. The Taliban had an
ideology and the support of many Afghans who defended them. Saddam does not
have any popular support.
His remarks were a response to US secretary of state Colin Powell's comment that
Iraqi opposition forces are weaker than the Northern Alliance and Saddam
Hussein is stronger than the Taliban.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
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Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
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not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it.
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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