January 26, 2003 The New York Times Iraqi Dissidents Meet in Iran to Plan Iraq Entry By ELAINE SCIOLINO
TEHRAN, Jan. 25 - More than a dozen exiled Iraqi opposition leaders have quietly gathered in Iran to prepare their entry into northern Iraq, in a sign of Iran's increasing involvement in planning for its neighbor's future. Iran's welcome of the opposition leaders, who came at the invitation of a senior Iraqi opposition cleric here, was coupled with an official offer of protection into Iraq, the opposition leaders said. They plan to hold meetings there in an area under Kurdish control and out of reach of the government in Baghdad, to designate a small group that will eventually decide on the shape of a government if Saddam Hussein is ousted. "We are struggling to determine whether or not an Iraqi leadership that can claim legitimacy can emerge," Kenan Makiya, an author and a Brandeis University professor who is part of the delegation, said in an interview. Mr. Makiya, who was one of three Iraqi opposition leaders to meet President Bush at the White House this month, added: "The Iranians are actually offering to protect us so we can hold our meetings in northern Iraq. Would you believe that?" Plans for the opposition to meet inside Iraq were drawn up at a meeting of more than 300 Iraqi opposition figures representing six main groups in London last month. There, the deeply divided groups called for a democratic and parliamentary federal government to replace Mr. Hussein, and they appointed a 65-member committee to continue planning. Mr. Makiya said his group planned to enter Iraq in the next few days but had rejected the offer of Iranian protection. The visit by the Iraqi opposition leaders and Iran's involvement illustrate the volatility of politics in a region where the United States, even if it intervenes directly in Iraq, is unlikely to be able to fully control developments. Iran's official position is that it opposes American military intervention in Iraq and that it must be left to the Iraqi people to decide their fate. But Iran has given protection and material support to Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, the Iraqi cleric whose goal is the overthrow of Mr. Hussein. Today, the influential head of Iran's Supreme Council for National Security, Hassan Rowhani, said of a potential war in Iraq, "If the U.S. goal is to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, we accept it if it is done under U.N. leadership." He added, however, that weapons inspectors must be given time to disarm Iraq, and charged that the real American goal "is the domination of the region and Iraqi oil." "Iraq has a 1,300 kilometer common border with us," Mr. Rowhani said. "An outbreak of a new war only one year after a war in our other neighboring country, Afghanistan, is unbearable." He added, "Military action is unjustifiable, and we should make all efforts to avert a war." The Bush administration recently told Iraqi opposition leaders that it opposed creating a government in exile because a huge swath of the Iraqi people would feel excluded after Mr. Hussein was ousted. The administration also told the group that the planned opposition conference in Kurdish-held northern Iraq in February could provoke retaliation against the Kurds by Mr. Hussein or even cause war. One member of the Iraqi delegation now in Iran said that the group might use this visit only to meet with the two main Kurdish leadersand to prepare for a gathering of the entire 65-member committee inside Iraq. An American official said that Iran has become increasingly helpful to the opposition. The official said the administration was generally pleased that Iran would provide such support, calling it a "positive trend." However, he cautioned that there continue to be deep divisions within the Iranian government over whether to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - divisions that cut across both the religious conservative and reformer camps. The official also said that the administration would prefer that the opposition conference not take place now in northern Iraq, in large part because of concerns about security. The presence of the Iraqi group in Iran has not been acknowledged by the Iranian government or reported by news organizations, even those not under government control. But the opposition leaders said they received an exceptionally warm welcome at the airport when they arrived on Wednesday. The delegation, which is led by Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the umbrella opposition group known as the Iraqi National Congress, includes Gen. Wafiq Sumarahi, the former chief of Iraqi military intelligence who defected in 1994; Latif Rashid, a representative of one of the two Kurdish opposition groups; and Mudhar Shawkat, leader of the Iraqi National Movement, an organization of mainly Sunni Arabs that works closely with the State Department. The group is meeting with Iranian officials in various power centers, but not with officials in either the office of the reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, or the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Makiya said. Neither of those offices seems deeply involved in the plan, he said. "We've had very important meetings here and increased support shown here for us," Mr. Makiya said of Iranian officials, declining to identify his interlocutors by name. But, he added, "We're not involved with the Khatami group. They have absolutely no say over Iraqi affairs." Mr. Khatami met with Ayatollah Hakim last week, but both Mr. Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi are on an official visit to India. In New Delhi today, Mr. Khatami said, "I hope the present situation would be solved without any war in a peaceful way." If Mr. Khatami and the Foreign Ministry have been excluded from planning with the Iraqi opposition, it would underscore the extent to which power is divided in Iran. The group would need the protection of the Revolutionary Guards and the Intelligence Ministry to cross the rugged mountains of the northern Kurdish area from Iran into Iraq. Neither the presidential spokesman, Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, nor the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid-Reza Assefi, returned phone calls seeking comment. On Friday evening, the Iraqi group met with Ayatollah Hakim over dinner at his office. The ayatollah, a Shiite who leads an organization called the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has abandoned his goal of creating an Iranian-style Islamic Republic in Iraq. He has instead moved closer to Iraqi groups, allowing his followers to cooperate with both Shiites and Sunnis, and even with the United States. The ayatollah has his own army, some of it in Iraq, but estimates of the number of troops vary from 12,000 to 40,000. Diplomats say Iran's Revolutionary Guards, controlled directly by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and the most powerful person in the country, train Ayatollah Hakim's troops in Iran. The meeting in Iraq to decide the shape of a post-Hussein government initially was supposed to take place on Jan. 15, but it has been delayed, Mr. Makiya said, because of opposition by the Bush administration. "I don't want a new page opened in Iraq that starts as an American occupation," he said.
