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American Morning

Iraqi Opposition Leader Submits Plan for Attack on Iraq

Aired December 17, 2001 - 08:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The question this morning is: Could Iraq be next? Well, over the past couple of weeks, there has been plenty of speculation that after Afghanistan, the U.S. may turn its attention to Saddam Hussein. An Iraqi opposition leader reportedly submitted a plan of attack to the Bush administration, modeled on the U.S. military strategy deployed in Afghanistan.

In the new issue of "The New Yorker" magazine, Seymour Hersh writes that the Iraqi war plan is the subject of intense debate within the Bush White House.

And Seymour Hersh joins me now from Washington -- welcome back -- glad to have you with us this morning, sir.

SEYMOUR HERSH, "THE NEW YORKER": Thank you.

ZAHN: So what is it that Iraqi opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi, has in mind here?

HERSH: He's got something new, which is interesting. One of the new facts is that he wants to come in from Iran. Iran has given him permission -- this is an Iraqi dissident -- you know, to come, stage his forces in Iran, go across the border into southern Iraq, and set up camp there. And that's a very big step. That hasn't happened before.

This man has been trying, Mr. Chalabi, with his opposition group I think since '93 or so to, with the help of the CIA and the Clinton administration, their money, to get it going. And now he has got an access route, which is from Iran, and he's also got the model, so they think, of what happened in Afghanistan, which was a combination of insurgency, that is the National Alliance -- the Northern Alliance, a lot of bombing and Special Forces.

So what he wants to do is go across with his people from Iran into Iraq, set up a base, have the United States declare him the provisional government of Iraq, recognize him, we send some Special Forces in there, we begin bombing, we tell Saddam, come on south -- you know, Saddam is up north in Baghdad -- send your tanks south to come get us in southern Iraq where he would be. And of course, if Saddam did that, as I quote somebody as saying, our planes would take care of his tanks. They'd be toast.

But the problem still is, and this is what the story is about really, who is going to -- what's going to happen if that works? It probably can work. It looks like we can certainly give Saddam a lot of trouble by doing so. But what happens to that country? Who is going to take it over? And that's the issue.

ZAHN: Well, let's come back to the plan and the amount of criticism of it. Aren't there a lot of people within the administration who simply don't think Ahmed Chalabi can pull this off?

HERSH: Oh, absolutely. But I have to tell you, they also believe that you could do something about Saddam with Special Forces. We did -- our Special Forces worked very well, particularly the Delta Force, in the 1991 war we had when we attacked Saddam in the Gulf War.

And so, we know we can do it, but the problem is, as I say, well, forget Chalabi for now. We can just do it ourselves if we found somebody to lead, but we don't have -- A, we don't have people inside. We don't have the intelligence we need. We really have very little out of Iraq. I quote on CIA person as saying, even back then in the early '90s we had nothing. I don't think we have much now.

And secondly, the fear is if you do overthrow Saddam, you get three countries. You know, you get a Shiite -- an Arab Shiite country in the south, where most of the people in the south are against the regime. They set up a separate government around Basra. You have a middle regime, where the tribes, that Saddam gets support from, fight each other. And in the north, of course, the Kurds take over, and nobody wants that too. That's chaos.

And also, none of our allies want us to go, and they want things left the way they are...

ZAHN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

HERSH: ... and they don't want anymore trouble -- I'm sorry.

ZAHN: Yes, I'm sorry too. Come back to the other piece of the puzzle here, that the role Iran would play. I mean, effectively is that the end of dual containment then, if we're suddenly trusting the Iranis to help this Iraqi opposition leader pull this off?

HERSH: They're out new buddies. They helped in Afghanistan, and certainly, they are more moderate. The only problem with the moderate side of Iran is, of course, there's also another side, which is the mullahs who still run -- the fundamentalists who still run Iran still support terrorism, particularly against Israel, Hezbollah. And also as I wrote a few weeks ago, they're making a nuclear bomb, and we don't know what quite to do about that. They've been digging holes, putting their bombs lower and deeper.

So that's another issue. Do we really want Iran to be involved in an overthrow of Iraq? And again, I have to stress this, Chalabi has a lot of support -- political support, and this administration is interested in what the conservatives think. A lot of people -- Richard Perle and his crowd, who is not an inconsiderable force in Washington, the former defense official who now runs something called the Defense Policy Group, and also many members of Congress -- Trent Lott and others. Very powerful members want Chalabi to be put in play. So it's a political issue for this government too.

ZAHN: Realistically, politically how soon could this happen if you build this political consensus? What are we talking about here?

HERSH: Oh, I think first of all, it's very clear that Colin Powell and his deputy, Mr. Armitage -- Richard Armitage are very much against this and fighting it very hard. And I think what's going to happen is more of the same. We're going to continue. As you know, we fly -- we attack in the no-fly zone in north and south Iraq. We set up zones, which are -- they're not allowed to do any military activity in, and we bomb if we see something.

I think we'll just do more of the same for the next four or five or six months, as the administration struggles with what to do, if anything, about Iraq. And don't forget, the Saudis, the Syrians and all of Europe has told us stay out of it. So it's a very interesting issue, because it's a question of politics versus reality.

ZAHN: Well, for anybody wanting to learn more about this and the points of the debate, dive into your December 24 issue of "The New Yorker," which will hit the newsstands here shortly. Seymour Hersh, always good to have you -- it was a fascinating piece. It has certainly given us a lot to think about this morning.

HERSH: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Take care.

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