WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- The State Department and the Pentagon this week invited leaders from the Iraqi National Congress to Washington next month to discuss "next steps" in opposition activities against Saddam Hussein's regime.
A letter sent Thursday from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ryan Crocker said the purpose of the Aug. 9 meeting "is to discuss ideas for next steps and coordinating our work with the Iraqi opposition."
With the Bush administration's increasing interest in toppling Saddam's regime in Baghdad, the State Department and CIA in recent months have increased contact with a wide spectrum of opposition groups.
That letter was sent to Ahmad Chalabi, head of the INC's information collection program and the former president of the organization; Sharif Ali bin Hussein, the current official spokesman for rebel coalition and the leader of the constitutional monarchist movement; both major Kurdish leaders Jalal Talibani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Masoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party; Iyad Allawi, the leader of the CIA-supported Iraqi National Accord; and Mohammed Baqr Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, a Shiite-based rebel organization supported by the Iranian government and Syria.
SCIRI, an original member of the INC, has not renewed its membership in the congress. The organization is also part of the "Group of Four," a group started in London over a year ago bringing together the two Kurdish parties in northern Iraq and the Iraqi National Accord. The Group of Four is currently planning an Iraqi opposition conference and has asked Chalabi to participate. State Department officials tell United Press International the State Department is hoping to use the meeting next month to encourage Chalabi's participation in that conference.
A State Department official said Friday, "This is to talk about a cooperative approach, how we continue all of our Iraqi opposition efforts and what happens the day after," referring to when Saddam is toppled.
While the Bush administration has decided that they would support giving humanitarian assistance to rebel groups inside Iraq for distribution, the State Department has yet to agree to a plan to do so from the INC. The State Department has also refused to approve an $8 million budget for the remainder of the calendar year for the INC that includes the information collection program Chalabi personally oversees. That program has yielded a number of defectors, one of who has proved to have new information on the placement and extent of Iraq's program for chemical and biological weapons.
The meeting will be hosted by undersecretaries Marc Grossman and Doug Feith -- the No. 3 officials at the State Department and the Pentagon respectively. The fact that the diplomats and war planners are co-hosting the meeting next month is significant because both sides have disagreed on tactical ways to proceed with the president's goal for regime change in Iraq.
