The New York Sun February 12, 2003 Iraqi Dissident Pachachi Rejects Israel By ADAM DAIFALLAH Staff Reporter of the Sun
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's planning for a post-Saddam Iraq includes working with an 80-yearold fervent Arab nationalist who has said he is "unable to accept" the existence of Israel, called for Iraq and Syria to unite into "one great Arab state," and who has praised Nikita Khrushchev. The democratic Iraqi opposition to Saddam has long complained about American courting of Adnan Pachachi, who had once been reportedly favored by Martin Indyk, an assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs in the Clinton administration. Mr. Pachachi was Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations from 1959 to 1965 and from 1967 to 1969. He served as foreign minister from 1965 to 1967. In his 1991 memoir, "Iraq's Voice at the United Nations, 1959-1969: A Personal Record," he wrote that the "basic injustice" at the heart of the Balfour Declaration "was so glaring and obvious that after 60 years I am still unable to accept it." "I have always retained a soft spot for Khrushchev because of his wholehearted support for the Arab position," Mr. Pachachi, who publicly opposed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, wrote. Mr. Pachachi said he was "well known in Kuwait" for his "stout defense of Iraq's claim [to Kuwait] in the Security Council in 1961 and my successful efforts to prevent the efforts of Kuwait to U.N. membership from 1961 to 1963." He publicly renounced his view that Iraq had a claim to Kuwait at a conference in 1999. He also wrote in 1991: "Whatever the outcome of the Kuwait crisis, the Arabs must continue their efforts to build a credible military alternative.the first imperative step toward reaching this goal is to achieve unity between Iraq and Syria. Without the unity of these two countries, the Arabs can never successfully resist Israel's armed might." Mr. Bush's special envoy for free Iraqis, Zalmay Khalilzad, was to meet with Mr. Pachachi yesterday, the New York Times reported. Calls to the National Security Council seeking comment were not returned. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations yesterday, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Marc Grossman, and the undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, said America would turn over control of a liberated Iraq to Iraqis as soon as possible. A senior administration official told the Daily Telegraph yesterday that Ahmad Chalabi would lead a post-Saddam Iraq.
