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U.S. To Finance Iraqi Opposition
WASHINGTON (News Agencies) - The United States is set to provide financial assistance for the Iraqi opposition to help it establish a presence inside the country, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen confirmed Sunday.
In an interview with CNN television, Cohen pointed out that, in order "to create an Iraqi opposition, clearly there has to be funds for communications, training and other purposes to have an effective voice as an alternative to Saddam Hussein."
According to the Washington Post on Sunday, outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration sent Congress a report stating that some $12 million would be needed for the Iraqi opposition effort.
Cohen did not confirm the figure.
The plan calls for distributing humanitarian aid in government-controlled areas of Iraq by means of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), The Post reported.
"It is not the intention to start arming and equipping and inserting these individuals into Iraq at this point," Cohen cautioned.
He said President-elect George W. Bush must first "develop a consensus with the Arab community, because he will need support from the Gulf states, as well, to carry out such a mission."
But Cohen stressed, "It is clear that, until Saddam Hussein is gone, Iraq will not be able to be fully integrated in the family of nations."
Clinton, outgoing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and many in the current Pentagon leadership have shied away from a full commitment to Saddam's splintered opponents, who are eligible for some $97 million in U.S. assistance under the Iraq Liberation Act.
Concerns that the opposition is not unified enough and unable to absorb that much aid efficiently, and may not have a viable replacement to Saddam had held back the distribution of all but a bit over four million dollars to the INC.
President-elect George W. Bush and his top advisors, who take office January 20th, have pledged to pursue more aggressive policies against the Iraqi leader, who remains in power 10 years after president George Bush, the elder, waged the Gulf War against Saddam.
While supporting measures to back the Iraqi opposition, Cohen defended existing sanctions against Iraq in the face of criticism from the president-elect.
Bush, in a New York Times interview published Sunday, said sanctions against the former Gulf War enemy were so porous they resembled "Swiss cheese."
Cohen, however, insisted that the sanctions regime had indeed been effective in containing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and limiting his ability to rebuild his military.
"It's been very difficult to hold onto a sanctions regime for so long, and the incredible thing is we've been able to maintain it," he said.
"But ... we have been successful in sustaining support for the sanctions regime, which, in effect, has curtailed Saddam's ability to rebuild his military.
"He is in no position to attack his neighbors at this point," the defense secretary said. "And so the sanctions regime, whatever its faults, whatever its deficiencies, it still has been the thing that's kept him in his box."
Economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which triggered the Gulf War.
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