Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

18
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de laPrensa-Basm Özeti
u.s. predicts ~oup if Iraq
By Wal~erPincus
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TheWashingtonPost . ~1\.~u..
thorized covert plan ruld only a small
WASHINGTON: Senior intelligence chance of working unless accompanied
experts inside and outside government by outside militaryaction, 0;1' at.least by
have reached a consensus that Presi. convincing the Iraqis that suth action
dent Saddam. Hussein of Iraq would .
was imminent
probably be overthrown in à coup led Iraqi officers over
by members ofhis inner circle in the final
days or hours before U.S. forces watched Saddam or-
the years have
launched a major ground attack.
der the shooting of
Faced with an imminent, overwhelming
U.S. assault and the choice for temporarily de-
his own sons-in-law
of either being Saddam's successors or fecting and the brutal
being imprisoned orkilled in the fighting,
top-ranking officers or a grOUp
elimination of senior
of
military and other senior officials
would take the chance to eliminate the
Iraqi leader, several senior administration
officials and intelligence experts
said in recent interviews.
"Someone will take action and cause
it to happen," said a former high-ranking
CIA officer with close ties to current
thinking among intelligence officials.
.
..It is unclear how widespread this
view is within the administration. But
with military preparations for a possible
attack underway, senior officials,
including Defense Secrëtary Donald
Rumsfeld, have recently spoken publiclY
about iraqls' eliminating Sadd8m
themselves, either, through assassination
or by sending him into exile.
. The White House spokesman. Ari
Fleischer, picked up the theme last
week, encouraging a coup d'état or assassination
in answer to questions.
about the possible cost of a U.S.-led invaSion.
"The cost of a one-way ticket is
. substantially less than the cost ofwar,"
Fleischer said. "The cost of one bullet,
ifthe Iraqi people take it on themselves,
is substantially less than that."
"SaddalIl Hussein could decide that
his futU;~ 'isÙmitèda~d he'd like to
leave," Rumsfeld told the House Armed'
Services Committee last month. "Another
way to do it would be to persuade
enough people in Iraq" that "the world
would be a lot better ifthat regime weren't
there and they decided to change
the regime."
The "silver bullet" approach - Iraqis
eliminating Saddam on their own -
has long been central to the CIA's ef-'
forts to end the Iraqi leader's dictatorship.
Early this year, President George
W. Bush directed the CIA to undertake
a comprehensive covert program to
topple Saddam, including the authority
to use lethal force.
n included instructions to increase
support and contacts with Iraqi opposition
groups and forces outside and inside
Iraq. n also authorized expanded
efforts to collect intelligence within the
Iraqi government, military and intelligence
service where pockets of anti-
Saddam sentiment have been detected.
The Washington Post reporteô in June
that the director of central intelligence, .
George Tenet, had briefed Bush and senior
cabinet members that tqe newly au-
colleagues based on
rumors that they were disloyal.
These officers "will have to be certain
the Americans are coming with ..
overwhelming force before they move,".
a top government analyst said. "They
have been hurt before."
A former senior official in the Clinton
administration agreed with this assessment,
citing a failed CIA attempt
employing Iraqi sénior officers to eliminateSaddam
in 1996.
«'It always has been the view of the intelligence
community that there wasa
low chance of success in the absence of
the sound of military footsteps in Baghdad,
" the official said.
Several officials said one reason for
their view that the inner circle in Baghdad
would move against Saddam was
the Bush administration's vocal, seemingly
determined planning to launch a
war - with the goal not just of eliminating
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
but also of changing the country's
leadership.
Senior defense and intelligence officials
have spoken openly of their conviction
that many Iraqi military units
would not defend Saddam in the event
of a U.S. attack, or could be persuaded
not to do so. .
The assessment that a coup in Bagh-'
dad would' be possible, if not probable; .
may have helped shape some of the administration's
thinking about planning
for a post-Saddam Iraq.
It has led many CIA and State Pepartmeilt
officials, for example, to op-'
pose recognition of the leaders of prominent
Iraqi exile groups as a government
in exile, arguing that they would never
be accepted to head any new Baghdad
government. .
"The exiles would be seen as a U.S.
quisling government," a senior analyst
said, referring to the Norwegian who
betrayèd his country to the Nazis in .
World War II and then headed the government
under Fascist occupation.
Although U.S. officials have talked of
instituting a democratic government in.
Baghdad, many intelligence officials
believe a military-led coup could help
keep Iraq together and avoid moves toward
separation that could come from
its three major ethnic groups: the Shiite
majority, Kurdish groups of the north
and the Sunni minority that has dominated
the country in recent times.
A coup also would leave many of
Iraq's upper- and middle-level bureaucrats
in place, limiting the need for major
rebuilding of the government, according
to the intelligence
community's thinking. .
. _ One- of severaLclandestine_operations
the CIA has undertaken in Iraq
since the late 1990s has been to identify
key officials around Saddam and 'find
ways to contact:them, mostly through.
intermediaries ...
The object is to plant the seeds for an
eventual coup or
possible assassination,
according to
current and former
U.S. officials. Promises
of future power
or wealth are among
the rewards dangled
in front of the Iraqis,
sources said.
Exiled Iraqi officers and political figures
are being used by U.S. intelligence
to keep in touch with former colleagues.
There are continuing efforts, mostly
unsuccessful, to approach and perhaps
recruit Iraqis who travel outside the
country, officials said.
Saddam is aware of these activities
and has regularly shaken up his top officer
corps and others with access to
him, including those in his own security
force. "He came up through the security
ranks of the Ba'ath Party and is obsessed
with his own security," a senior
analyst said.
Saddam's closest aides are often the
only ones to see him and he constantly
is on the move, sources said. His public
. appearances are almost never announced
ahead of time and it is wellknown
that he almost never sleeps in
the same bed two nights in a row.
The Special Republican Guard and
other key security forces are run by
Saddam's younger son, Qusay, and they
include a large number of members
from their tribe in Tikrit, the Iraqi leader's
power base in northern Iraq.
Even so, Saddam and his son constantly
move key people around "just to
keep them off balance," an intelligence
official said.
Another official said that these people
are so identified with the Iraqi leader
that his overthrow would probably include
wiping out most ofhis tribe.
"They have profited from the relationship
and they know his death could .
be theirs," an official said. "That makes
them even more loyal."
One of the more curious nuances in
the administration's public pronouncements
in rècent weeks is the idea of Saddam
and his family and advisers being
sent into exile.
In his testimony to the House last
month, Rumsfeld said that one choice
Saddam had was "to take his family and
key leaders and seek asylum elsewhere.
Surely one of the ISO-plus countries
would take his regime - possibly Belarus."
.
But most intelligence analysts said .
they doubted Saddam would take that
route. "He knows that if he is not in
power, he's dead," one top analyst ofthe .
Iraqi government said. "What country
would take him and how could he be
. sure he would be.safe?"