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US to give Iraq rebels weapons, security training
Tuesday, 13 February 2001 10:57 (ET)
US to give Iraq rebels weapons, security training
By ELI J. LAKE
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- In the next month, a handful of Iraqi rebels
are scheduled to go to College Station, Texas, for their first round of
weapons training from retired federal lawmen and retired members of the
military's Special Forces under a U.S. plan to support insurgency activities
inside Iraq.
The Iraqi National Congress, the coalition of Iraqi dissidents and rebels
that the United States has officially supported since 1998, is in the final
stages of completing a $98,000 contract with the Guidry Group, a consulting
firm comprised of former secret service agents. Under that contract, INC
security officers would learn the fine art of diplomatic security.
What distinguishes this training from previous courses for the INC, is
that the rebels attending the five-day seminar would also learn how to use
pistols, Kalishnikov rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and a variety of other
firearms. Previous U.S.-backed training for the INC has been limited to
"non-lethal" activities, such as emergency medical care, public relations
and war-crimes investigations.
Although the State Department still considers this assistance to be of the
non-lethal variety, the INC clearly does not.
"This is important because this is the first time we are receiving lethal
training with the United States government funding," said Francis Brooke,
the Washington adviser for the INC.
Retired Gen. Wayne Downing, the commander of the joint special operations
task force during the Gulf War, concurred.
"This is significant because this is the first lethal training," he told
United Press International. "It is designed to protect, so the significance
is that this is the first time they are being trained to do anything on this
level."
But State Department officials disagreed.
"This is not lethal assistance," one official said. "The skills involved
are purely protective and defensive in nature of the type necessary for the
INC to protect any non-lethal presence or activities inside Iraq."
The debate over lethal assistance marked the INC's fiercest battle with
the Clinton administration. The lethal aid promised in the 1998 legislation
that authorizes $98 million for the group was never delivered largely under
the premise that the INC was not ready to challenge Hussein militarily.
But this thinking may change under the Bush administration. Although
Secretary of State Colin Powell has carefully avoided making any comments on
the military aspect of the Iraq Liberation Act, his counterpart at the
Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, is a long-time supporter of a plan to oust
Hussein through U.S.-backed rebels.
Both Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, signed a letter to Clinton
in 1998 that spurred the creation of the Iraq Liberation Act.
The Feb. 18, 1998 letter states, "Iraq today is ripe for a broad-based
insurrection. We must exploit this opportunity."
It goes on to outline a series of steps the government should take to aid
the INC, including positioning "U.S. ground force equipment in the region so
that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the
anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq."
The $98,000 contract with the Guidry group is tucked into a larger $4
million aid package -- separate from the Iraq Liberation Act funding --
aimed at establishing an alternative Iraqi media through radio transmitters,
satellite television stations and newspapers. The plan, approved initially
in September by the Clinton administration, also sets aside money for INC
members to go inside Iraq to collect information on war crimes, Iraq's
military and political changes in Baghdad.
One of the INC's principal leaders Ahmad Chalabi, speaking to reporters
and analysts Friday at the American Enterprise Institute, said he believed
his group could attract a number of defectors from Iraq's military if they
established a presence inside the country.
"The Iraqi army is unwilling to defend Saddam, but they are too weak to
overthrow him," Chalabi said, estimating that 40 percent of Iraq's elite
Republican guard is absent without leave.
To be sure, the five-day security seminar is a far cry from the
battlefield training and U.S. military support envisioned by Chalabi and his
supporters in Washington. Chalabi on Friday said he hoped the Pentagon would
change the rules of engagement for U.S. aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone
in northern and southern Iraq, to allow fighters to attack Iraqi army
battalions when they were moving against civilian targets.
Downing, who has worked as an adviser on a volunteer basis with the INC
for three years, called the security training in the State Department aid
package a "drop in the bucket."
"This is not the training they will need to put together a liberation
army," he said. "There you would need individual training, basic training,
weapons training, involving anti tank weapons, machine guns, rockets and
that sort of thing."
Downing estimates this sort of training would take six to eight months and
could be provided by either the U.S. military or the CIA.
INC officials will meet Edward Walker, the acting assistant secretary for
Near East Affairs, Tuesday to discuss the remaining details of the $4
million aid package.
--
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
--
dam(FYI)
Text
US to give Iraq rebels weapons, security training
Tuesday, 13 February 2001 10:57 (ET)
US to give Iraq rebels weapons, security training
By ELI J. LAKE
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- In the next month, a handful of Iraqi rebels
are scheduled to go to College Station, Texas, for their first round of
weapons training from retired federal lawmen and retired members of the
military's Special Forces under a U.S. plan to support insurgency activities
inside Iraq.
The Iraqi National Congress, the coalition of Iraqi dissidents and rebels
that the United States has officially supported since 1998, is in the final
stages of completing a $98,000 contract with the Guidry Group, a consulting
firm comprised of former secret service agents. Under that contract, INC
security officers would learn the fine art of diplomatic security.
What distinguishes this training from previous courses for the INC, is
that the rebels attending the five-day seminar would also learn how to use
pistols, Kalishnikov rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and a variety of other
firearms. Previous U.S.-backed training for the INC has been limited to
"non-lethal" activities, such as emergency medical care, public relations
and war-crimes investigations.
Although the State Department still considers this assistance to be of the
non-lethal variety, the INC clearly does not.
"This is important because this is the first time we are receiving lethal
training with the United States government funding," said Francis Brooke,
the Washington adviser for the INC.
Retired Gen. Wayne Downing, the commander of the joint special operations
task force during the Gulf War, concurred.
"This is significant because this is the first lethal training," he told
United Press International. "It is designed to protect, so the significance
is that this is the first time they are being trained to do anything on this
level."
But State Department officials disagreed.
"This is not lethal assistance," one official said. "The skills involved
are purely protective and defensive in nature of the type necessary for the
INC to protect any non-lethal presence or activities inside Iraq."
The debate over lethal assistance marked the INC's fiercest battle with
the Clinton administration. The lethal aid promised in the 1998 legislation
that authorizes $98 million for the group was never delivered largely under
the premise that the INC was not ready to challenge Hussein militarily.
But this thinking may change under the Bush administration. Although
Secretary of State Colin Powell has carefully avoided making any comments on
the military aspect of the Iraq Liberation Act, his counterpart at the
Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, is a long-time supporter of a plan to oust
Hussein through U.S.-backed rebels.
Both Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, signed a letter to Clinton
in 1998 that spurred the creation of the Iraq Liberation Act.
The Feb. 18, 1998 letter states, "Iraq today is ripe for a broad-based
insurrection. We must exploit this opportunity."
It goes on to outline a series of steps the government should take to aid
the INC, including positioning "U.S. ground force equipment in the region so
that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the
anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq."
The $98,000 contract with the Guidry group is tucked into a larger $4
million aid package -- separate from the Iraq Liberation Act funding --
aimed at establishing an alternative Iraqi media through radio transmitters,
satellite television stations and newspapers. The plan, approved initially
in September by the Clinton administration, also sets aside money for INC
members to go inside Iraq to collect information on war crimes, Iraq's
military and political changes in Baghdad.
One of the INC's principal leaders Ahmad Chalabi, speaking to reporters
and analysts Friday at the American Enterprise Institute, said he believed
his group could attract a number of defectors from Iraq's military if they
established a presence inside the country.
"The Iraqi army is unwilling to defend Saddam, but they are too weak to
overthrow him," Chalabi said, estimating that 40 percent of Iraq's elite
Republican guard is absent without leave.
To be sure, the five-day security seminar is a far cry from the
battlefield training and U.S. military support envisioned by Chalabi and his
supporters in Washington. Chalabi on Friday said he hoped the Pentagon would
change the rules of engagement for U.S. aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone
in northern and southern Iraq, to allow fighters to attack Iraqi army
battalions when they were moving against civilian targets.
Downing, who has worked as an adviser on a volunteer basis with the INC
for three years, called the security training in the State Department aid
package a "drop in the bucket."
"This is not the training they will need to put together a liberation
army," he said. "There you would need individual training, basic training,
weapons training, involving anti tank weapons, machine guns, rockets and
that sort of thing."
Downing estimates this sort of training would take six to eight months and
could be provided by either the U.S. military or the CIA.
INC officials will meet Edward Walker, the acting assistant secretary for
Near East Affairs, Tuesday to discuss the remaining details of the $4
million aid package.
--
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
--
dam(FYI)
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