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Article Excerpt
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2002,
LONDON
A headline on a newspaper outside the Metropole Hotel, where factions of the Iraqi opposition are convening this week, declares: "Troops Start Countdown to War." One can feel the expectation among the exiles, hundreds strong, in the hotel's lobbies and cafes. War is coming, and on its winds they will be carried back to Iraq, where they imagine they'll govern. But among the turbaned mullahs and dark-suited Arabs and Kurds are the men from Washington: State Department, Defense, White House, and CIA are all here, conspiring in corridors. On the fourteenth floor, George W. Bush's special envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Zalmay Khalilzad--fresh from his king-making exercise in Afghanistan--pulls the strings of the Iraqi marionettes below.
This, a sign says, is "The Iraqi Opposition Conference, London, 14-16 December 2002. For Democracy and Salvation of Iraq." It's a bit of the Middle East in England, so the conference begins late and with a recitation from the Koran. On a dais before the 320 delegates are the principal figures of the Iraqi opposition: Jalal Talabani, Massoud Barzani, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, and Ahmad Chalabi. Talabani and Barzani, who represent the two main Kurdish parties, are the only Iraqis here who can be said to govern any part of their country. They fought a civil war from 1993 to 1996 and divided Iraqi Kurdistan into two, Barzani running the northwest, Talabani the southeast. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and his older brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, head the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Supported by Iran, they represent much of Shiite Muslim religious sentiment in Iraq. The fourth, Ahmad Chalabi, runs the Iraqi National Congress (INC). He represents ... what he represents is not clear. He is a Shiite Muslim exile, a brilliant mathematician, a banker who was convicted in absentia of fraud in Jordan, a secular democrat, and the Iraqi whom most of the new crowd at the Pentagon like. He is also the best-dressed man here, smooth-faced and short, in a tie that is pure silk and a suit that looks Savile Row. His record of opposing Saddam Hussein, going back to when Saddam exercised power through the nominal president, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, is more consistent than that of any other politician. The State Department and the CIA have their own man, Iyad al-Allawi, and disparage Chalabi.
Outside, some fifty demonstrators chant and hold signs: "Bush and Blair Will Murder Thousands for Oil" and "We Demand an End to Western Interference in the Islamic World."
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2002
A young Kurdish journalist takes me aside to tell me what happened during the night. At three in the morning a delegate stormed out of one of the working committees saying, "I cannot work with these people." Then, he says, "Khalilzad sat between Talabani and Barzani all day, hearing the words 'federalism' and 'Kurds' from every speaker. But Khalilzad never said 'federalism' or 'Kurds.' It is worrying." The Kurds fear that the United States will sell them out by taking away their autonomy and letting a new pro-American regime in Baghdad restore direct rule.
Khalilzad addresses the assembly. My friend is right. He mentions neither the Kurds nor the federal structure they demand. "Today," he says to the delegates, "the free Iraqis are here to liberate their country from a brutal dictatorship." He pauses to allow an Arabic translation. "I see many old friends, committed Iraqi patriots." This goes on and on, until he concludes in the new White House style, "God bless the people of Iraq."
When an Assyrian Christian addresses the conference, the Chaldean Christians walk out. Their dispute dates to A.D. 1550, when the Chaldeans went with Rome and the Assyrians remained with the Orthodox Church. They tend to hate each other more than they do the Muslims. All of the Iraqis are fractious, and they take their differences to Bush's man, Khalilzad, for mediation.
The delegates are going to choose a smaller group to meet next month in Salahuddin, northern Iraq. They cannot agree on the number of delegates, who they should be, or the percentage of seats that should be given to each party. SCIRI is demanding 40 percent of the seats. Talks continue all night. And the leader of this new body? One delegate says, "Whoever he is, he should be decent. So that lets Chalabi out." Another tells me that the Iraqi opposition are in accord on only one thing: they do not like Ahmad Chalabi. This, he says, gives Chalabi the advantage over them all.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2003,
NORTHERN IRAQ VIA TEHERAN, IRAN
At 3:00 A.M. I am up for a rendezvous with the INC in the Shohreh Palace Hotel in north Teheran. Chalabi and his young daughter Tamara, who has just finished her Ph.D. in history at Harvard, are staying in a government guest palace with their bodyguards. They meet us at Teheran's domestic airport. Chalabi is wearing brown tweeds and snow boots that he bought in Teheran. His daughter is uncomfortable in her chador. When we pass a sign that reads, "Hijab is like shell for a pearl," she is not convinced.
The 6:00 A.M. flight to Urumieh takes an hour. At the clean, provincial airport, Iranian officials greet Chalabi as if he were a head of state. Flunkies carry the luggage to vans outside, and local dignitaries invite the Chalabi entourage to drink tea.
I assume we will head straight to the border, but I am mistaken. Chalabi's Revolutionary Guard hosts drive to their headquarters, where we remove our shoes and sit amid armed guardsmen to have tea, bread, sweet water-buffalo cheese, and honey. One of the INC people complains that, the night before, Zalmay Khalilzad called Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the SCIRI but not Chalabi.
Back in the cars, we head through town and up the snowy mountain. Climbing for over an hour, we reach the last Iranian town, Piranshahr, where we stop for lunch at a local restaurant. I have yet to digest breakfast. When the Iranians like you, as they seem to like Chalabi, they kill you with hospitality. It is not pleasant for Ahmad, whose dieting in the last few years has seen him drop about forty pounds that he does not want back. Chalabi's chief of operations, a young Kurd named Aras Karim, tells us what the border protocol will be. It is, he says, as if for a head of state, not that many ever cross this border. The Revolutionary Guards will stand to attention for Chalabi, salute, and hand him over to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on the Iraqi side.
We drive on icy roads out of the rough breeze-block border town and into open country, past smugglers leading cigarette-laden donkeys up winding trails. The Land Cruisers ascend a desert of snow, where you can drive...
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