LONDON Ñ More than 70 former Iraqi military officers, including
leading generals, launched discussions on fomenting a military coup against
President Saddam Hussein.
The officers met in London over the weekend in the first public session
by military defectors. The conference, attended by about 200 Iraqi civilian
and military opposition figures, was organized by the U.S.-backed Iraqi
National Congress and attended by Jordan's Prince Hassan Bin Talal, the
former crown prince.
Organizers said the defectors arrived from around the world and braved
threats of retaliation by the Saddam regime. They said the closed-door
meeting on Saturday will be the first of several strategic conferences on
toppling Saddam and instituting democracy in Iraq. A communique was expected at the session's conclusion, Middle East Newsline reported.
A Jordanian government spokesman confirmed Hassan's participation and
said it was his personal decision. The spokesman, Mohammed Udwan, said
Hassan's participation at the opposition conference did not reflect the
position of the Hashemite kingdom.
But Western diplomatic sources said Hassan's presence at the conference
was a signal that Jordan had changed its policy toward Iraq and now
supports the replacement of the Saddam regime. Hassan is said to have quietly
become an adviser and envoy of Jordan's King Abdullah.
[On Saturday, U.S. warplanes dropped precision-guided weapons to strike
Iraqi air defense facilities in southern Iraq. A U.S. military statement
said the site was targeted because it helped direct the Iraqi attacks
against the coalition warplanes.]
The Bush administration said it did not provide funds for the
conference. But officials said Washington supports the opposition effort.
"This is not a conference that we've supported financially," State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "But we do support the idea of a
broad-based military conference. We hope the conference helps the Iraqi
community move closer to a goal of a better future for the Iraqi people
after Saddam Hussein. We are in very frequent touch with Iraqi opposition
groups and work with a whole variety of opposition groups regarding Iraq."
Opposition sources said Britain and the United States have intensified
operations in Iraq. They include psychological warfare operations meant to
destabilize the Saddam regime.
Over the last week, leading U.S. and British dailies have reported of
secret U.S. plans for an attack on Iraq. The INC has long called for U.S.
support for anti-government insurgency operations in Iraq.
