I simply have to stop posting after a night of "revolutionary activity". At
any rate, here's what I was trying to post.
Macdonald
U.S. to Aid Iraqi Opposition to Develop a Military Cadre
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Related Articles
Issue in Depth: Attack on Iraq
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By STEVEN LEE MYERS
ASHINGTON -- The Administration has authorized the first direct military
training for opponents of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, senior officials
said Wednesday.
Starting next week, four Iraqi rebel leaders, including two former officers
in Iraq's armed forces, will attend a 10-day training course at the Air
Force's special-operations headquarters in Florida, where American officials
will school them on how to organize a military in an emerging state. Other
courses are being prepared.
The Administration has also approved its first contribution of surplus
Pentagon equipment intended to help foster the overthrow of President
Hussein, offering the main Iraqi opposition groups $2 million worth of
office supplies.
While the initial assistance is modest -- and, the officials emphasized,
"nonlethal" -- it reflects the sharp shift in policy toward overt support of
what amounts to an insurgency against Hussein's Government. In that sense,
it recalls American support in the 1980's for the contra rebels in Nicaragua
and for the mujahedeen guerrillas who resisted the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan.
The training and equipment, which includes computers, fax machines and file
cabinets, represent the first portion of $97 million in aid authorized by
Congress last year to bolster the fractious groups intent on deposing
President Hussein.
"The notion here is to help people associated with the opposition to think
about a plan for the country after Saddam Hussein," a military official who
has worked closely with the Iraqi opposition said Wednesday.
Ever since four days of American and British air strikes against Iraq last
December, the Administration has openly stepped up contacts with Iraqi
opposition leaders. So far, those efforts appear to have had little impact
on dissent inside Iraq, and officials at the Pentagon, in particular, remain
deeply skeptical of the viability of Hussein's opponents.
The Administration, however, has been under increasing pressure from
Republicans and even some Democrats in Congress to do more to support the
opposition with equipment and possibly arms.
Representative Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, the Republican chairman of
the House International Relations Committee, Wednesday accused the
Administration of having "a lethargic approach" and called for more
significant assistance.
"I can't imagine that Saddam Hussein would be worried about being overthrown
by Iraqi exiles trained in civil affairs brandishing fax machines," Gilman
said.
Iraqi opposition leaders, however, strongly welcomed the support. Dr. Salah
A. Shaikhly, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of
exiles, said the equipment and training would be "vital to our work in
Iraq."
" 'Nonlethal' doesn't mean not useful inside Iraq," he said in an interview
today in Washington.
Administration and military officials said they hoped this first installment
would strengthen the credibility of the opposition.
The Administration made its decision on the eve of a large gathering of
opposition groups in New York City this weekend. They are looking to the
gathering as a chance to forge a unified front against President Hussein,
something that has been sorely lacking because of infighting among his many
opponents.
"The United States Government wants to hear from a unified Iraqi popular
leadership just how it can proceed to support the people of Iraq in
promoting the change of regime, as it is the right of you, the Iraqi people,
to do," the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Thomas R.
Pickering, wrote to the leaders of seven opposition groups on Monday.
The aid comes during a troubling period in the Administration's handling of
Iraq. There have been no inspections of Iraq's reported nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons programs since the Government expelled United Nations
inspectors 15 months ago, leading to December's punitive attacks.
And while the Administration says Hussein remains isolated, diplomatic
efforts to set up a new inspection system, as called for under the terms of
the cease-fire that ended the gulf war in 1991, have foundered.
Senior Pentagon officials also fear that Iraq has quietly rebuilt much of
what American and British warplanes destroyed in December, including missile
factories. And while American and British jets patrolling "no flight" zones
over Iraq regularly attack Iraqi air-defense sites, including a strike today
against missile sites in northern Iraq, those attacks have not put an end to
President Hussein's defiance nor eroded his grip on power.
In the absence of significant diplomatic progress, the main focus of
Administration policy on Iraq has become fomenting opposition inside and
outside the country.
The first military training will take place at Hurlburt Field, near
Pensacola, where the four Iraqis will attend a regular Air Force course for
officers from Arab and Central Asian countries. Officials emphasized that
the course does not include combat training.
The Administration and Iraqi opposition groups declined to identify the four
Iraqis. "They are going to go back into Iraq," Dr. Shaikhly said. "We don't
want Saddam Hussein to know who they are."
The four include a former captain and a former major in the Iraqi armed
forces who defected after the gulf war and took part in the failed uprisings
that followed. The other two also took part in those uprisings and are now
civilian members of opposition groups.
While the Pentagon provides training to scores of officers from around the
world, it is highly unusual to offer courses to people who are not backed by
sovereign governments. The officials said they expected to offer space to
more Iraqis in other Pentagon courses.
They also said they are considering additional equipment, including
communications gear. While the Central Intelligence Agency has provided
covert support to Iraqi dissidents in the past, this is the first overt
military assistance.
Administration officials said they had not ruled out providing weapons, but
they said they want to move slowly to be sure that Hussein's opponents build
a viable foundation before attempting a military challenge.
"We have not ruled out future lethal assistance," the State Department's
spokesman, James P. Rubin, said today. "But at this time we believe that
providing such assistance would do more harm to the Iraqi opposition than to
the regime."
The wariness reflects the history of infighting among the opposition groups,
which include Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, Shiite rebels in southern
Iraq and exile groups like the Iraqi National Congress, which is based in
London.
While the groups share the objective of overthrowing Hussein, they have been
torn by their own rivalries. What unity did exist collapsed completely in
1996, when Iraqi forces pushed into northern Iraq on behalf of one Kurdish
faction, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, fighting another, the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan. That operation also allowed President Hussein's forces
to crush a cell of dissidents supported by the C.I.A.
Administration officials said they welcomed the groups' progress in renewing
the common cause.
"They started near zero," a senior Administration official said. "A year ago
there were only the remnants of the Iraqi National Congress, and those
remnants could not and would not meet with each other. They've come a long
way from that point."
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How many times have I wondered if it really possible to forge links with a
mass of people when one has never had strong feelings for anyone, not even
one's own parents; if it is possible to have a collectivity when one has not
been deeply loved oneself by individual human creatures. Hasn't this had
some effect on my life as a militant- has it not tended to make me sterile
and reduce my quality as a revolutionary by making everything a matter of
pure intellect, of pure mathematical calculation?
---Antonio Gramsci, 1926.
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