LONDON Ñ For the first time, Iraqi military officers will hold an official conference to establish a military council and plan the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein's regime.
Seventy Iraqi defectors will meet on Friday in London to plan strategy
to topple Saddam and establish a democratic regime. The three-day conference
is expected to be the first time such a large group of military officers
publicly joins the opposition.
Iraqi leaders and newspapers have already denounced the officers and
warned them not to convene.
The defectors are expected to discuss how to
recruit Iraqi commanders to join a coup against Saddam.
Opposition sources said the officers plan to form a military council of
up to 10 members. The council will draft strategy for the overthrow of
Saddam.
Most of the officers are said to be affiliated with the Iraqi National
Congress, an umbrella group supported by the United States. An INC
conference scheduled to include the officers was delayed amid a fall-out
with the Bush administration.
The organizers of the conference are two Iraqi generals who have been
active in crushing insurgency movements. Gen. Tawfik Yassiri was injured
during the U.S.-sponsored Shi'ite uprising in the south in 1991 after the
Gulf war.
Gen. Saad Ubeidi headed Iraqi military psychological operations and
could have been involved in devising methods of torture.
Iraqi opposition sources said the State Department has not informed the
military officers whether the United States would participate in the
conference. The department is said to have scheduled a meeting of Iraqi
opposition activists for Monday in Washington.
Meanwhile, fighting continues in northern Iraq between a Kurdish group
and an Islamic insurgency movement linked to Al Qaida. Kurdish sources said
at least 17 people were killed in the clash that began on Wednesday between
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Defenders of Islam movement aligned
with both Al Qaida and the Saddam regime.
