Pentagon Plans to Train Iraqi Oppositions: Paper

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, September 27, 2002

Pentagon Plans to Train Iraqi Oppositions: Paper

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The Pentagon is preparing to train at least 1,000 Iraqi opponents of President Saddam Hussein to serve as battlefield advisers, scouts, guides and translators for American military units during a US attack on Iraq, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

In a further sign of stepped up administration planning for a military assault, President George W. Bush could sign a new presidential directive authorizing the training as early as this week, US officials were quoted by the newspaper as saying on Wednesday.

The presidential directive will be followed by congressional notification of Bush's intent to provide training and equipment already authorized under the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act.

US officials stressed that Bush has not made a final decision. But the Pentagon has started compiling a list of about 1,000 likely recruits, taken from names submitted by Iraqi opposition groups, of those who could assist US units on the grounds, as well as provide guards and supervisors for Iraqi government troops in prisoner-of-war camps.

In a second training phase, additional recruits would be prepared to occupy forward positions inside Iraq, where they would "light" targets for laser-guided weapons during US air strikes and to undertake other support tasks.

There are no current plans to provide full combat training and sophisticated weaponry to the opposition, although such activity would be possible under the new presidential authorization, US officials said.

Marking a major change in US policy, the new directive would end more than four years of White House prohibitions on "lethal" assistance to the Iraqi opposition.

Advanced war planning, along with new pledges of cooperation among competing opposition groups, appear to settle a long-simmering administration debate over the opposition groups' usefulness.

Fought largely between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency on one side, and the Pentagon's civilian leadership on the other, it has centered on differing assessments of the extent of internal support for the groups, and whether they were capable of substantive participation in a military cooperation.

Stepped up war preparations have added political and military urgency to finding a role for opposition groups. Although many in the State Department continue to express reservations, proponents of their inclusion and the groups themselves have argued that opposition forces could play the same role as the Northern Alliance did during the war in Afghanistan, manning the front lines of a ground war against the Iraqi government.

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