Official spokesman of Iraqi Ulamas (Scholars) Group, Sheikh Mohamed Baqir Nassiri said, "Thirteen Iraqi [opposition] national factions boycotted the London meeting. We [the 13 factions] agreed on three major issues. The first is our aim to overthrow the current regime of Saddam Hussein, as the case with the participants of the London meeting. Second, we do not reject, as a matter of principle, international aid to meet the first end.

"But we need an honest aid that respects the Iraqi national agenda of installing a democratic regime that respects human rights and national interests. Third, we want the regime change to stem from within the Iraqi people, not imposed by a foreign power that will eventually mix its own agenda with the Iraqi case," Nassiri added.

While not doubting the loyalty and patriotism of "a number of the London participants", the London-based Nassiri accused some of those attending of running after a U.S. imposed agenda that is sure to come in the way of the national Iraqi interests.

And in Cairo, Iraqi opposition figure Abdul Kareem el-Alloushi stressed that the London participants have been away from home (Iraq) for too long, adding that they no longer have any influence or presence among the Iraqi people.

"They move and act according to the American goals, hidden or declared, in an attempt to have a future role in what is called the after-Saddam era. If the U.S. wanted just to remove Saddam, we would have all supported it blindfolded. But is this really the case?" El-Alloushi charged.

"The U.S. has its own agenda that involves the whole region. The [destruction of the] Iraqi people, with its human and natural sources comes on top of that agenda. There are 22,000 Iraqi scientists and technicians that the U.S. wants to evacuate outside the country.

"Where have the U.S. and its allies been when the Iraqi opposition was tortured, abducted and killed by the regime for over two decades now? Why have they supported Saddam all that time?" El-Alloushi wondered.

The Iraqi dissident, in Cairo for more than ten years now, accused the London participants of trying to impose legality on the planned "U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people".

"No national party, worldwide, has ever asked the U.S. aggressor to attack their own homeland, those people supposedly speaking on the Iraqis name did that," he added.

El-Alloushi asserted that the best solution for the Iraqi crisis depends on "international pressure on the regime, helping the Iraqi opposition inside Iraq to be in a position to isolate the Saddam regime internally and externally.

"But any regime imposed over the bodies of Iraqis by the U.S. weaponry will never be accepted and will never stand a chance of success," he concluded.

For his part, Egyptian political expert Dr. Rifaat Sayed Ahmed hailed the mere convention of the London conference (comprising several Iraqi opposition factions), as a "positive step", adding that the question remains; "then what?"

"On what bases are they meeting, on what grounds will the despotic regime in Iraq be overthrown, and how the joint, democratic work in Iraq be activated? In case the U.S. imposed its own agenda in Iraq and the region, this will kill the very great idea behind the gathering of the Iraqi opposition, creating, meanwhile, political isolation for the participants," Ahmed elaborated.

However, deputy head of al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, Dr. Waheed Abdul Majid, charged that the U.S. does not seek international legality (to attack Iraq) from the London conference, adding that resolution 1441 has already given it such legality.