-Caveat Lector- I remember fowarding the original information concerning the plot to overthrow Saddam by Iraqi Republic Guards, when it was occurring, to either CTRL or Biowar. In any case, this is a follow-up. From: http://reports.guardian.co.uk/articles/1998/12/6/36964.html - US halted plot to oust Saddam In June, Iraqi Republican Guards were poised to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Helga Graham reports on the man behind the plot and his backer - CIA agent 'Mr Fox' Sunday December 6, 1998 The US put on hold a coup planned by elements within the elite Republican Guard which had a real prospect of removing President Saddam Hussein, according to a dissident regarded by the Iraqi leader as one of his most dangerous enemies. Abdel Razak Sultan al-Juburi, a former general in the Guard, said the coup had been in preparation for a year and was 'well advanced'. But on 30 June he had been told by a US agent to postpone it - despite the Administration's public statements of support for the Iraqi opposition. 'He said we will stop now, but in six months' time or maybe one year, we will contact you again in London or Saudi Arabia,' Juburi said, recounting the conversation with his Ankara-based CIA contact, a 'Mr Fox'. Now a refugee attempting to find a foothold on the fringes of Eastern Europe, Juburi will this week renew his application for entry to the UK. In the precarious security situation in Belgrade, where he was forced to seek asylum, his safety must be a matter of some concern. Saddam has twice placed a huge price on his head - in 1995 the reward was an 'open cheque' in US dollars. His revelations about US and Saudi intelligence operations may also put him at risk. He has been told by Fox that he can expect no US support for his application for entry to Britain. 'We can't help you to make contact with the British. We don't like or allow the British to be involved in our operations,' Fox told him. By contrast, the Iraqi National Congress, the opposition group led by Dr Ahmad Chalabi, has - according to the US press - received around $40 million from the US and was last month invited to brief Congress. Juburi said: 'Internally, the psychological and political effects [of the postponement] will be devastating. The Republican Guard would now be ready to follow a well-organised revolt. People are boiling.' Young officers in the Republican Guard previously masterminded Iraq's most serious potential coup, just before the Gulf war in January 1990. After ignoring him for a number of years, the CIA approached Juburi briefly in 1995 and more seriously in April 1997. He had by then already set up an underground organisation in Iraq. Despite its few resources, it has hit the regime hard. Juburi travelled once a month to Dahok in northern Iraq, making contact with officers through intermediaries. Fox declared himself well satisfied with an operation and, according to Juburi, said it was 'the best ever'. But Juburi was frustrated by the meagre funds - less than $100,000 spent in a year - and other restrictions. He was prevented from contacting a group of exiled Iraqi officers in Holland. 'Not for now,' said Fox. A final straw for a shaken Juburi was Fox's languid timetable for ousting Saddam, over three to four years. 'He also said Saddam was strong,' says Juburi, less in anger than disbelief. Encouraged by the promised US support of the Iraqi opposition and the lavish $100 million voted for the task by Congress, he flew to Istanbul to be close to the action, hoping his own 'postponed' coup would take off. Here a second shock awaited him. Despite possession of a valid visa, Turkey rejected him, as did Pakistan and Jordan. Both put him on the next flight back to Istanbul. Fox declined to help with US allies in Jordan and Turkey. After this airport merry-go-round, Juburi's wife and young family were forced to camp in the transit lounge at Istanbul for a fortnight while Juburi was held in semi-detention by the Turkish police. Meanwhile, Juburi was trying to find a 'safe haven' for his family - not an easy task for an Iraqi without financial resources. A tall, well-built, impressively controlled man in his early forties, Juburi was one of Iraq's most decorated soldiers in its war with Iran. >From a sheikh-status family linked to Iraq's former parliament, he has been fully committed from early in his military career to opposing Saddam. He is unideological, a modernising democrat against both Saddam's repression and his corrupt cronyism. In 1991, he disobeyed orders to kill Shia Muslims in Kerbala and disappeared underground, a hefty price on his head within hours. After fleeing Iraq, he returned to rescue his family, bringing them out across a perilous no man's land. He returned to Iraq again in 1994, 'disguised and working at night' - the first and only Iraqi to set up an organised, military-style underground opposition both among civilians and the Republican Guard. With astonishing aplomb, Juburi now turned up at the house of his old friend from staff college days, Mazloum al-Dulaimi, commander of Al Bakr air base. Fearing that Saddam was bent on Iraq's destruction, Dulaimi at once fell in with the plot. By 1 March 1995, he said: 'I will guarantee to be ready to bomb all Saddam's symbols of power: his palaces, radio centres, all intelligence services and the Special Guard.' At this critical stage, Juburi's Saudi intelligence backers - providing only minor funds for the cars, safe houses and bribery - withdrew support. Amid the resultant despond in the underground movement, Juburi's regimen of strict discipline was breached. One officer made a false move. Dulaimi was arrested. At Dulaimi's funeral in May 1995, his home town of Ramadi erupted in violence against government buildings. Juburi who partly guided the violence, ordered the organisers to withdraw before the arrival of Saddam's son, Qusai, and the Special Guard caused a bloodbath. It was the first major Sunni revolt. Inevitably, the close links between the Saudi and US intelligence led to speculation among Iraqi military that, while the West was willing to whip up a certain amount of froth, Saddam was not to be seriously challenged. This impression was reinforced by Juburi's encounters with US intelligence at the time. In 1994-95, virtually ignoring Juburi and his corps of dissident officers, the CIA backed a bizarre, aborted pseudo-coup centred on Ahmad Chalabi's US-sponsored INC. The plan was to attack the Iraqi army. But at the last moment the Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, phoned Washington to check on promised air cover only to discover there was no such US commitment. A massacre was averted. Washington apologised and withdrew its 'rogue' agent. 'From me, they just wanted names of officers really. The intricacies of how a coup should be organised in the Republican Guard seemed not to interest them,' said Juburi. The Republican Guard now numbers about 100,000, overseen by political commissars reporting directly to Saddam and his sons. Large numbers belong to the Juburi or Dulaimi tribes, the biggest Sunni tribes of central Iraq, whose relations with the regime have deteriorated dramatically in the Nineties - but especially after Mazloum al-Dulaimi's murder in 1995. In the event of a well-prepared coup, Juburi claims that 90 per cent would support it. The last loyalists are now in the Special Guard, estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, the black heart of Saddam's regime. 'The Special Guard were behind us during the invasion of Kuwait, threatening to shoot those of us, and that included about half of the Republican Guard generals, who objected.' Juburi now fears that Western strategy may be to keep Saddam in place, albeit 'very, very weak'. Juburi is above all now concerned that the US plan may be to bomb the Republican Guard - an aim underwritten forcefully last week by Henry Kissinger. 'How can they do that, when they well know in Washington that Saddam's loyalist backbone is not now the Republican Guard but the Special Guard? Do they want to destroy Iraq completely?' Why was Juburi's plan dropped? One strand of a complex game is that, if Iraq were to return to the oil market some time soon, the price, already low, would fall further below the $10-a-barrel floor. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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