Kurdistan Observer

DUBAI (AFP) — President Saddam Hussein's about-turn on UN arms inspectors will have won him a reprieve at best from Washington's avowed goal of ousting his regime, Iraqi dissidents said on Thursday.

Saddam's decision to readmit the inspectors after a four-year hiatus might play into the hands of the US administration in one of two ways, said Hamed Bayati, London representative of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Iraqi Shiite Muslim opposition group.

If Baghdad allows the arms experts to get on with their work, they might destroy weapons of mass destruction which Washington feared would be used by Iraq in a military showdown, he told AFP.

On the other hand, Baghdad's obstruction of the inspectors could spark a crisis that would provide justification for a US strike, one which, from Washington's perspective, would have the added benefit of being carried out under a UN umbrella rather than unilaterally, Bayati said.

The United States has made up its mind about toppling the Baghdad regime, and “US officials told us that this is not linked to the inspectors' return. As to how and when they will do it, they said this was up to President George W. Bush, who has not decided yet,” Bayati said.

Bayati took part in meetings with senior officials from the US administration along with representatives of five other Iraqi opposition groups in Washington last month.

Baghdad's readmission of inspectors might succeed only in delaying a US aggression until early next year, he said. This would suit the Bush administration, as it would be after November's congressional elections, as well as the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in November and the Christmas season.

Ahmad Chalabi, head of the US-backed Iraqi national congress (INC) also attended the Washington meetings. He said Baghdad would be required to do much more than simply allow the inspectors back, including “dismantling concealment mechanisms” and accepting some form of human rights monitoring in the country.

Unless Iraq complies with such demands, it is unlikely Saddam's latest “manoeuvre” will “deflect President Bush from his purpose of regime change,” he told AFP from London.

Whether that change will come through a military strike or otherwise remains to be seen, but “war is a grey area [with shades ranging] from white to black,” Chalabi said.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested on Wednesday that a decision by President Saddam to leave the country and go into exile would help avoid US military action against Iraq.

Former Iraqi General Najib Salhi, who sits on a 15-member “military council” formed by exiled Iraqi officers in July, agreed that Washington would demand more than a mere resumption of arms inspections.

The US list will include, among others, quick results from the inspections, accounting for people missing from the 1991 Gulf War and implementation of UN resolutions dealing with democratisation of Iraq, Salhi said from Washington.

The inspections are bound to fail, meaning that the inspectors' return might postpone, but not cancel, US military plans, he said, noting that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz had said as much.

In any event, Saddam's U-turn on inspections “did not come as a surprise,” since the Iraqi leader has a record of blinking when he is cornered, said Salhi, a former commander in Saddam's elite Republican Guard.

Sadi Ahmad Pire, foreign affairs chief for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two main Kurdish factions sharing control of northern Iraq, said US officials had left little doubt that Baghdad's green light to inspectors had not changed their plans.

The inspectors' return might delay US plans, but it is also liable to lead to an escalation of the Baghdad-Washington stand-off on disarmament, Pire told AFP by telephone from Suleimaniya, the main town in the PUK-held part of the Kurdish enclave.

So far, the United States had not approached the Kurds about using the enclave in a future military offensive against Baghdad, and Kurds were taking a “cautious” attitude towards US plans, he said.