US names its choice to succeed Saddam

By Toby Harnden in Washington

(Filed: 12/02/2003)



America is planning to install the leader of a London-based opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, as the interim president of Iraq once Saddam Hussein is toppled.

Ahmad Chalabi, 57, a Shi'ite exile who fled Iraq with his family when he was 12 and attended a British boarding school, is currently in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and may remain there until an invasion begins.

"It's pretty clear it's going to be Chalabi, [barring] some dramatic development during the war," a senior Bush administration official told The Telegraph.

"We will try to get him and the other opposition leaders back into Baghdad as quickly as possible and set up an interim authority that can pick up the pieces of government."

But he added that "no final decision" on Mr Chalabi had been made because "it would be a mistake to reach any firm conclusions before the military stage is over".

Once military victory was achieved, the official said, Gen Tommy Franks would be the de facto ruler of the country.

However, the Bush administration has decided that a leader in the mould of Gen Douglas MacArthur would only heighten accusations of American imperialism.

The current plan would be for Mr Chalabi to take over from Gen Franks once a conference of Iraqi opposition leaders could be convened inside the country. A principal American goal would be to hand Iraq over to a democratic government as swiftly as feasible so that US forces could withdraw.

"The more visible we are and the longer our presence is, the more of a target we present," the official said. "We want to give the country back to the Iraqis and let them take responsibility for the country. One thing we can do is to [try to] stop Saddam torching Iraq's oilfields. If he does, we'll have to try to put the fires out and do something to secure the oilfields again. We will also secure the outer perimeter of the country.

"We plan to find and destroy the weapons of mass destruction. We will do that and not the United Nations. We sure as hell are not going to ask Hans Blix [the chief UN weapons inspector] to do it."

Although the Iraqi people would elect their new president, occupying the interim post would probably make Mr Chalabi the clear favourite. Hamid Karzai, the interim president of Afghanistan, was subsequently confirmed as the country's leader. Mr Chalabi has the firm backing of the Pentagon's civilian leadership and Vice President Dick Cheney's office but senior figures in the State Department have argued against him.

"One school of thought was that people in Iraq would resent someone from outside," said the official. Mr Chalabi was educated at Seaford College in Sussex and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and took a PhD in maths at the University of Chicago.

State Department desk officers have described Mr Chalabi as corrupt, citing his 1992 conviction in absentia in Jordan for embezzlement and theft. Mr Chalabi, who has survived at least nine assassination attempts, says he was framed after his Petra Bank, the third largest in Jordan, collapsed.

The official, who said the debate over whether to go to war "is over", stressed that Mr Chalabi would not be a puppet leader propped up by America and that free democratic elections would take place in Iraq as soon as practicable.

Iraq's relative wealth and educated middle-class made it in some ways easier to rebuild than Afghanistan, the official said, but different ethnic groups would have to be in the administration.