Ahmad Chalabi

WASHINGTON —  Ahmad Chalabi may have the most unenviable job in the Middle East, maybe even the world. For the last four years, he has headed the fractious opposition assembled in the Iraqi National Congress, the first group to openly challenge President Saddam Hussein from inside Iraq. The job has often required as much time holding disparate and disjointed groups together as challenging one of the world’s most ruthless dictators.

A big man with a big voice and even bigger ideas, Chalabi originally succeeded through sheer force of personality, say allies and friends. For more than a year after fighting broke out in 1994, he was the central figure in repeated cease-fire negotiations to end clashes between Kurdish factions, whose rivalries date back centuries. “No other Iraqi in our movement could have pulled it off,” said a senior Kurdish official in one of the sparring parties.

The INC was formed after Baghdad brutally quashed simultaneous rebellions by Shi’ite Muslims in the south and Kurdish rebels in the north, just days after the 1991 Gulf War. Chalabi blames the United States for the defeat.

When negotiating the cease fire, U.S. officials did not restrict the movement of Iraq’s tanks, artillery or helicopter gunships--a standard practice after a conflict. Those were the weapons Hussein then turned on his own people.

The Bush Administration’s decision not to help the uprisings grew out of concern about the fragmentation of Iraq into three ethnic-based parts--which could have serious spillover consequences on Iraq’s neighbors. Chalabi charges that should never have been an issue. “The INC charter calls for the territorial integrity of Iraq and all the groups have signed it,” he says, “No one wants to see the breakup of our country.”

Ironically, Chalabi has spent most of his life outside Iraq. He left the family home in Baghdad to study abroad in 1966; his family, influential in the Iraqi government for three generations, had fled in 1969, after the Baath Party seized power.

Chalabi personifies the modern Arab, that unusual mixture of West and Orient. A small Koran, bound in green leather, sits on the coffee table, atop a cable guide and an elegant book on the architect Le Corbusier in the Art Deco living room of his Washington home. His resume includes a B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Chicago. One daughter just started Harvard graduate school in history; the other is at the London School of Economics. But the family identity is firmly centered on their Shi’ite Muslim faith.

Over the past four years, Chalabi has commuted between London, now his family’s main home and where his two sons are studying, and the rugged mountains of northern Iraq, where he set up an office just 200 miles from Baghdad.

Chalabi is not without controversy. After years of teaching at the American University of Beirut, in the late 1970s he was invited by Jordan’s crown prince to head Petra Bank, which became one of the country’s largest financial institutions. In the late 1980s, however, he was fired by military decree and then convicted, in absentia, of fraud, embezzlement and illicit transactions totaling $25 million, for which he was sentenced to 22 years in jail. Chalabi claims he was the victim of Jordan’s then ties with Baghdad--and his passing of information on Jordan’s sanctions-busting business with Iraq. Since the INC was formed, he has met twice with King Hussein in Europe.

He also refuses to answer questions on widely reported CIA subsidies for the INC, which is one of two opposition movements backed by the United States. The other, the Iraqi National Accord, a predominantly Sunni Muslim group of former military officers, was behind a foiled coup attempt this summer.

Despite the massive defeat of the Iraqi opposition this month, however, Chalabi claims the INC is still alive and struggling to oust Saddam Hussein.

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Question: With the odds always against it, did the new Iraqi opposition ever really make much of an impact?

Answer: The Iraqi opposition had a very important opportunity after the West set up “Operation Provide Comfort” and the safe haven in northern Iraq. For the first time since Saddam took power [in 1979], or since the Baath Party came to power [in 1968], a united opposition of all strands of Iraqi thought--from leftists to Islamists and liberal democrats--and from all ethnic communities --Assyrians, Shi’a, Sunni, Turkomans and Christians--met and adopted a single program. It called for the overthrow of dictatorship, adoption of a pluralistic, parliamentary system of government, and respect for human rights.

This took place in Iraqi Kurdistan in October 1992, and it was a landmark event in Iraqi history. It was a remarkable and exhilarating time. It brought together groups that had been irreconcilable.

The Iraq National Congress then set up headquarters in Salahuddin and began to prepare itself to confront Saddam. We set up broadcasting, both TV and radio, and communication facilities. We set up computers with text processing and graphics to produce newspapers, pamphlets, even books addressed to various sectors--the army, doctors, women, engineers, students--and distributed them all over Iraq. Never before had Saddam faced an opposition capable of conveying its message within Iraqi territory.

Throughout, we behaved democratically. An INC congress elected an executive council, which elected me to be president. We had meetings of these bodies in Kurdistan every two months--until the [Kurdish] civil war started, in 1994. Our delegations were received by high officials throughout the world--Secretary of State James Baker in July 1992, Prime Minister Major in Britain, King Fahd in Saudi Arabia, the emir of Kuwait, Turkey’s President Ozal and others in France, Spain, Holland, Germany and Italy.

Q: The Iraq National Congress is not thought of as a militia. Did it ever have military impact?

A: The INC became a magnet for military figures who defected from the army. There was an agreement, in March 1995, between the Kurdish parties of the INC to mount military operations against Saddam to put pressure on the army to detract more defectors and to generate a move to topple the regime.

These operations started March 4. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan participated but the Kurdistan Democratic Party did not and did not facilitate movement of INC forces from territory under its control. These operations were successful because they led to the destruction of the 38th Army Division and the equivalent of another division. Over 700 army defectors came over and several hundred more came subsequently.

We demonstrated that the Iraqi army will not fight in the defense of Saddam, that it had basic problems with its infrastructure and mobility, and that change can best come through a combined effort of opposition forces working with the Iraqi military wherever possible to create momentum for a final political change.

Unfortunately, the campaign was stopped when the KDP attacked Irbil [the Kurdistan capital then controlled by the PUK] on March 27. The campaign also did not have Western support. It was the only time throughout this effort that there was a major shooting war with Saddam’s forces.

Q: What has happened to the Iraqi opposition since the troops of Saddam Hussein and his Kurdish allies swept through northern Kurdistan?

A: Saddam took the Iraqi opposition more seriously than its friends in the West did. Before his [recent] attack, he targeted the INC with bombs, bullets, in ambushes and with thalium acetate, a tasteless poison. He once sent a vial to be used on me.

But we were ill-equipped to defend against tanks, so since the attack, the INC has suffered a heavy blow. It lost a lot of people who were killed by Saddam, and its infrastructure was destroyed in Irbil. But the INC lives on. We still have people working in the north and in the south. The people of INC are showing remarkable resourcefulness in confronting Saddam.

Q: What can the INC realistically hope to achieve?

A: The situation in the north is by no means final or settled. It is still very fluid. [Kurdistan Democratic Party leader] Massoud Barzani has expressed a desire for U.S. protection. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is defeated but not dead. It still has thousands of fighters inside Iraq. And there is still the possibility of mediation. The United States has said it will continue to seek a mediated solution to the problem. So the prospect of working in northern Iraq is still there.

Q: Do you see that happening soon?

A: If Saddam’s heavy armor is forced to withdraw from the Kurdish area, and if the KDP is sincere about cutting links with Saddam, then clearing the Mukhabarat [secret police] is not a problem. They were thrown out with relative ease in 1991 after Saddam was told his army had to be removed.

So restoring the situation--if there is a political consensus and political will by the KDP--is not impossible. In fact, it could happen rather quickly.

Q: How do you feel about the way the United States handled this crisis?

A: We feel that this tragedy could have been averted--not by taking military action but by resolving the Kurdish dispute. The makings of a solution were there. We needed the United States to have an agreement under its auspices. And we needed a little money--$2 million to pay for a peacekeeping force--as a token of U.S. commitment. I feel certain we could have resolved the dispute, as we did in 1994, and prevented Saddam from coming to the north. We were very close to an agreement when the Iraqi army began to advance on Irbil.

The United States led the coalition to establish the safe haven that provided us with an opportunity to show the world an example of opposition working inside Iraq. This was squandered by not following through on a peacekeeping team in the north. One has to be fair. The Kurds started the fighting. But it was in the U.S. interest to try to stop it.

Q: What do you want from the United States now?

A: We want the United States to help us restore the situation to what it was before Saddam invaded Irbil. The first step lies in disengaging the KDP from Saddam, by getting the KDP to affirm its commitments to democratic principles and to Saddam’s overthrow--as it signed onto in the INC charter. Then Saddam must be removed from the north.

We’re not talking major bombardments or ground troops. We are talking about the accumulative process of political and military pressure--such as establishment of a no-drive zone in the north [to prohibit deployment of elite troops and major weaponry] and expansion of the no-fly zone in the north to the 35th parallel, which would encompass [the major Kurdish cities of] Sulimaniyah and Kirkuk.

We want the United States to state categorically that it will not deal with the Iraqi government as long as Saddam is in power. This would send a clear signal to the people of Iraq that he is doomed. Because, as strange as it may seem, Saddam still puts out among his supporters that the U.S. has no choice but to have him in power.

Since the U.S. says its focus is now in the south, it could also help us establish a safe haven in a southern zone, which is now demilitarized under a U.N. resolution. It’s along the Kuwaiti border. It’s not very big but it’s enough to establish bases. We could go there.

Q: Realistically, how strong is Saddam now?

A: He adroitly managed to take the north almost by default. He managed to split the coalition by dangling economic benefits to some of its members, such as oil to the French and repayment of debt to the Russians. And he managed to exploit a humanitarian problem--for which he is responsible--to move many countries to sympathize with the plight of Iraqi people. He even got a statement of support from the Arab League after the U.S. airstrike. He appears to be successful--but he is, in fact, very weak inside.

The inner circle he relies on is narrowing. He has quarreled with major clans and tribes that he once relied on. His regular armed forces have suffered terribly due to sanctions. He has great difficulty getting spare parts and new equipment--so training and competence have diminished. Saddam had to use his best armor to carry out this operation, so if there had been any other move inside Iraq, he wouldn’t have been able to deal with it effectively. But it requires someone to call his bluff.

Saddam survives off the contradictions of his enemies. The mutual fears they have of each other introduces a paralysis in their actions against him. He ends up being everybody’s second choice--but that is good enough for him to survive.

Q: How much impact have economic sanctions had?

A: They have pauperized the Iraqi middle classes and driven the lower classes back 70 years. The effective per capita income is comparable to what it was in the 1930s or late 1920s. Whatever resources are available, Saddam and his group have first claim on.

Q: What can the opposition do from outside Iraq?

A: The opposition can reaffirm its unity, highlight the plight of the Iraqi people and mount a campaign to bring Saddam to trial. Secretary of State [Warren] Christopher publicly stated when he received our delegation in 1993 that the U.S. supported creation of a U.N. commission to look at evidence of Saddam’s crimes. This could be reinvigorated. The opposition can play an important role in stripping Saddam of his veneer of legitimacy further and further.

The Iraqi opposition has a long history of struggle against Saddam. Thousands have fought and died in this dictatorship. We are building on this tradition and we are not going to go down to defeat.