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White
House Sanctioned Covert Program To Kill Saddam Hussein: Report
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Saddam
Hussein - George W. Bush |
With
additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem, IOL
Washington
D.C.
WASHINGTON,
June 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – As Americans gather in
Washington to lobby for the lifting of the sanctions against Iraq, the
Washington Post reported that U.S. President George W. Bush directed
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to undertake a comprehensive,
covert program to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein early this
year, including granting them the authority to use lethal force.
The
presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding
designed to oust Saddam, directs the CIA to use all available tools,
including increased support to opposition groups inside and outside
Iraq
.
It
also provided for expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the
Iraqi government, military, security service, tapping into perceived
anti-Hussein sentiment.
Bush
also allowed for the possible use of Central Intelligence Agency and
U.S. Special Forces teams in the operation, with such forces being
authorized to kill the Iraqi president if they were acting in
self-defense.
The
administration has allocated tens of millions of dollars to the covert
program, according to the Washington Post on Sunday.
Sources
told the Post that the CIA initiative was part of a broader Bush
Administration plan to remove Hussein that ranges from economic
pressure to diplomacy and what officials believe will eventually
include military action on a large scale.
However,
opponents of the
U.S.
plan to topple Hussein believe that such actions would only act as a
catalyst for a civil war in which the majority Shiite population in
Iraq
would eventually seek to align itself with Shiite majority
Iran
, which the
U.S.
regards as a rogue state.
According
to the United Nations mandate, it is illegal for any country to take
action towards the toppling or assassinating of a head of state or
government. The mandate is designed to protect the sovereignty of
nations and peoples’ rights to elect their own leaders.
Meanwhile
in
Washington
D.C.
, American activists gathered for the Education for Peace in
Iraq
Center
’s (EPIC) annual “Iraq Lobby Days.” The participants are set to
meet over the weekend to be briefed on the status and repercussions of
the 11-year-long U.S.-led sanctions imposed on
Iraq
after the Gulf War, which have already killed nearly 1.5 million
people - over half of whom are children.
The
briefings will include an “Iraq Forum” designed to brief
participants on
Iraq
’s political history, weapons inspections and the current
U.S.
foreign policy towards the nation. Forum speakers are set to include:
Raad Al-Kadiri, Petroleum Finance Company; Phyllis Bennis, Middle East
Analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies; David Cortright,
President of the Fourth Freedom Forum; Kathy Kelly, Co-founder of
Voices in the Wilderness; Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq;
Professor Peter Pellet, Team Leader for four FAO missions to Iraq; and
Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector.
The
lobbyists are then set to spend Monday and Tuesday lobbying their
Congressional representatives into lifting the sanctions, which have
been repeatedly denounced as unproductive and devastating to the Iraqi
population. Three top United Nations officials, including humanitarian
relief coordinators Hans von Sponeck and Dennis Halliday, as well as
Ritter, have resigned their posts in protest of the sanctions and the
failure of the oil-for-food program to alleviate the suffering of the
Iraqi people.
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