U.S. Suggests Aid to Any Iraqi ‘Successor Regime’

The Clinton administration Wednesday signaled a more aggressive approach to try to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, holding out the prospect of rapid U.S. efforts to work with any “successor regime” in Baghdad and major Western aid to help rebuild the country.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright outlined a strategy--forged after a high-level, interagency policy review that began shortly after the November presidential election--designed to prod Baghdad’s ruling inner circle to oust the dictator.

“A whole range of economic and security matters would be open for discussion in a climate of cooperation and mutual respect,” she told an audience at Georgetown University. “The United States looks forward to the day when Iraq rejoins the family of nations as a responsible and law-abiding member.”

The speech, Albright’s first major address on a specific U.S. foreign policy, reflected the heightened priority the new secretary gives Iraq, which was one of her main responsibilities as the top American envoy to the United Nations and an issue that put her in the political limelight.

The proposed talks with any new regime would have two immediate goals, she said.

The first would be to verify that the new Iraq would be independent, unified and free from undue external influence from other countries, such as Iran. The second would be to verify changes in political behavior.

But after news of a major oil-prospecting deal between Russia and Iraq, Albright issued a warning to allies in the fragmenting coalition that forced Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, as well as to Washington’s Persian Gulf nemesis.

In tough language, she said the U.S. commitment would be unwavering as long as Hussein is in power.

“To those who ask how long our determination will last, how long we will oppose Iraqi intransigence, how long we will insist that the international community’s standards be met, our answer is--as long as it takes,” she said.

Russia signed a major oil development deal this month with Iraq that could produce as much as $70 billion for Baghdad in a 23-year period, oil experts say.

After U.S. officials pressed, Moscow pledged that the deal to develop the southern Qurnah fields, estimated by Iraqi officials to contain 8 billion to 12 billion barrels of high-grade crude, would not begin until after international sanctions imposed by the United Nations are lifted.

But Washington remains alarmed by attempts by Russia, France and China to line up high-profit deals with the oil-rich state.

“We do not agree with the nations who argue that, if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted,” Albright said.

“This is not the time to go wobbly toward Iraq,” she said.

Six trying years after the 1991 war ended, Albright’s address also underscored how few options Washington has in Iraq since the collapse of the U.S.-backed opposition coalition and the withdrawal of a CIA station and intelligence operatives in northern Kurdistan last fall.

Beyond sanctions, which the allies have sporadically pressed the United States to reconsider, the Clinton administration has mainly used words to threaten Baghdad.

Besides a long pattern of denial, delay and deceit on major aspects of the cease-fire agreement, Iraq also has still not accounted for prisoners of war, has failed to return stolen property and weapons and has continued to engage in massive repression and human rights violations against its own population, Albright said.