- LONDON (Reuters) - Leaders of the exiled
Iraqi opposition, dealt a heavy blow by a U.N.-Iraq deal over weapons inspections,
said Monday President Saddam Hussein had outfoxed Washington in the crisis.
They said the United States had fallen into a trap by not using force against
Iraq at the first signs of tension over suspected Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. The deal on inspections brokered by U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan would only prolong the suffering of the Iraqi people, they added.
``The United States has made serious miscalculations twice, once in 1991
when they didn't finish Saddam, and now because they strongly and wrongly
believed that Saddam would not back down. He surprised them and climbed
down,'' said Wafiq Samoraei, the London-based former head of Iraqi military
intelligence. ``We have to admit that Saddam Hussein has achieved a victory
which we hope will be temporary,'' Samoraei told Reuters by telephone.
He said the Iraqi opposition, which had hoped the United States would launch
a powerful strike to finish off Saddam, had been dealt a blow by the diplomatic
solution. ``It was a hard blow for the Iraqi opposition. Now the opposition,
plagued by divisions, has no choice but to sit down, collect themselves
and wait,'' he said.
Western governments, who have unsuccessfully tried to foster a credible
Iraqi opposition, believe that only a military coup could oust Saddam.
``The problem is that the U.S. and the West have no strategy...to oust
Saddam,'' said Hamid al-Bayati, representative of the Iranian-backed Supreme
Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Jordan-based D.J. Karim, a leading
member of the Iraqi National Accord opposition, said the deal had not changed
the group's determination to work for Saddam's downfall. ``We said right
from the beginning that this dictator would back down whenever he felt
there was an immediate threat to him or to his regime,'' he said. ``But
from previous experience, this dictator always abuses agreements.''
London-based Iraqis and Arab experts, recalling an earlier showdown over
weapons inspections between Baghdad and Washington last year, said the
new deal might not end tensions over Iraq's behavior. ``Ultimately, whether
Saddam complies with U.N. resolutions or not, there will be a (military
attack) because he has embarrassed Washington, which miscalculated his
actions,'' said Abdel-Bari Atwan, an expert on Iraq and editor of the London-based
al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. Some exiled Iraqis said they expected Saddam
to demand a price, including the ending of his isolation in the region,
for yielding to Arab pressure to avert a war.
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