WASHINGTON, June 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. congressional leaders voiced support Sunday, June 16, for plans to topple, or if necessary kill, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein through covert actions in what was termed Monday, June 17, by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri as "nothing new".

"It's nothing new," Sabri told journalists after a Washington Post report Sunday said that U.S. President George W. Bush had directed the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to overthrow Saddam this year, including authority to use lethal force, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"The United States has plotted against Iraq for more than 30 years and plots against any country in the world which demonstrates independence," Sabri said.

"From time to time, the United States presents its policy with a misleading appearance to dupe [American] public opinion," the minister added.

Congressional support of a U.S. plan to topple or kill the president of Iraq took different shapes.

"I think there is broad support for a regime change in Iraq," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle told Fox News. "The question is, how do we do it and when do we do it?"

Daschle said Washington should "keep our eye on the ball," and not lose focus on toppling Al-Qaeda, adding: "We want to work with the administration and try to find the best way and the best time" to outs the Iraqi President.

Senator John McCain agreed that Saddam should be removed from power and called on the United States "to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to bring about this regime change." But he said he doubted that covert actions would be enough.

"I don't know if we can succeed or not, and I would guess that the experts would tell you the odds are against it succeeding with just covert activity, support for opposition within," he told CBS news, suggesting that a larger scale offensive would be necessary.

Asked about White House comments that Bush has no war plans on his desk, McCain laughed.

"Well, in all due respect, that's probably technically correct. They're probably not on his desk. They're probably on somebody's desk down the hall," he said.

"I mean there's all kinds of contingency plans and appropriately so, even in some very far-fetched scenarios,” he said.

Daschle added that the U.S. should have “contingency plans” for what he termed as a “threat,” in what sounded like the latest U.S. pretext for launching a fresh strike on 11-year-sanctions-hit Iraq.

"We should try to do it first covertly or with special operations but, if not, be prepared to do what's necessary," he said of the plan to oust or kill Saddam.

Republican Congressman Dick Armey, the House majority leader, told ABC news that he supported the president's initiative.

"We understand that Saddam Hussein harbors, fosters, financially supports terrorism, and ... the Bush principle is that if you do these things, you are a terrorist and you must be dealt with," he said, echoing recent discourse on a so-called war on terror.

Speaking on ABC's program, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said covert U.S. efforts make sense in the face of Iraq's alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and refusal to comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to submit to international weapons inspections.

“It's trying to bring about a change of regime, because they have continued to flout U.N. resolutions and international law,” the Post quoted Gephardt as saying. “I think it is an appropriate action to take. I hope it succeeds in its quest.”

None of the congressmen saw the U.S. plan against Saddam as a change in U.S. policy that precludes American forces from assassinating foreign leaders.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) agreed that the administration must be ready to take overt action to remove Hussein if the covert strategy fails. At the same time, Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded cautionary notes, warning that American forces may have to remain in Iraq for years to keep the peace once Hussein is toppled, the paper said.

"What are we going to do after we take him down, so that the Kurds and the Turks aren't in a war, that the Shias in the south and the Iranians aren't back at it again, and so on and so forth?" Biden asked on "Face the Nation." He said the administration needs to agree on a vision for Iraq's future.

Even as congressional leaders applauded the expanded covert efforts, Alabama Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said CIA Director George J. Tenet should be replaced. "I think we could do better. I've always thought that," Shelby said on CNN's "Late Edition."

The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Saddam, directs the Central Intelligence Agency to use all available tools, including the possible use of U.S. Special Forces teams in the operation and authorization to kill the Iraqi president if they were acting in self-defense, AFP said.

The administration has allocated tens of millions of dollars to the covert program, according to the Post.

Sources told the Post that the CIA initiative was part of a broader Bush administration plan to remove Saddam, ranging from economic pressure to diplomacy and possible military action on a large scale.

Meanwhile, Iraq said Sunday, June 16, 2002, it hopes that next month's talks with the United Nations on outstanding issues, notably the return of U.N. arms inspectors, would lead to a comprehensive settlement between the two sides, AFP said.

"Dialogue must aim for a comprehensive solution and not towards the settlement of certain aspects of the problem without resolving the background of it," a government spokesman told the official INA news agency.

The spokesman was talking after a meeting between President Saddam Hussein and his senior officials focused on the "agenda for the upcoming round of talks with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan," scheduled for July 4-5 in Vienna.

Iraq will send a message to Annan to demand responses to the questions Baghdad addressed to the Security Council in March during a first round of talks between the U.N. chief and the Iraqi Foreign Minister, he said.

These questions focused notably on ways of resuming weapons inspections in Iraq and how the U.N. could guarantee that arms inspectors would not spy for the United States.

"From the first round of talks, Iraq presented the U.N. secretary general a number of fundamental questions so he could submit them to the U.N. Security Council, but we have not received a response to this day," the spokesman said.

An agreement on the resumption of weapons inspections after a three-year hiatus to "refute U.S. lies on weapons of mass destruction" that Iraq is accused of possessing and developing, could come within the framework of a "real settlement foreseeing the total lifting of the embargo."

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