Iraqi partners? (Scan).(Iraqi National Congress)(Brief Article)

The American Enterprise Institute recently hosted a discussion with five of the six top leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, the main opposition group and potential alternative to Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.

The INC members began by noting that the majority of Iraqis are not supporters of the current government; they are oppressed by it. "Saddam Hussein's regime is one of the worst in history, and the Iraqi people have not stopped struggling to free themselves," declared the INC's Sharif Ali bin al Hussein. "Saddam rules his people through tyranny expressed through terror ... and he exports that into his foreign policy and production of weapons of mass destruction [as well as] his support for international terrorism."

The INC has "been in constant dialogue with the United States" on how to build resistance to Saddam on the ground, stated Sharif Ali. "The Clinton administration depended on the policy of containment and sanctions, which has been insufficient over the past ten years to undermine the regime." So what does the INC want instead? "What we want to do is close the chapter on Saddam Hussein. We want the United States to empower the Iraqi people to end this nightmare." Sharif Ali is confident that an overthrow "is doable."

Why is he so sure the INC can accomplish what has seemed impossible over the past decade? Because Saddam's government "is not the all-encompassing totalitarian regime that people think it is. That's pre-Kuwait. Over the last ten years, the regime has lost its legitimacy.... It's lost a great deal of its control inside Iraq. What we need is the support of the international community. We need the United States to empower us to shorten the period that it will take to overthrow the regime, and to send a clear message to what remaining support Saddam Hussein has in Iraq ... that there will be no appeasement, that there will be no rehabilitation."

Though virtually ignored by the American media, "the Iraqi National Congress is the strongest opposition ... in the Arab world. We have over a third of the country liberated. We have our own military forces. We ...