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Chalabi Says He Doesn't Want Role in Iraq Govt.
Mon April 14, 2003 09:06 AM ET
PARIS (Reuters) - Ahmed Chalabi, one of Iraq's best-known opposition leaders with strong support in the Pentagon, said in an interview published on Monday that he did not plan to play a political role in his homeland.
"I want to take part in the reconstruction of the civilian society," Iraqi National Congress leader Chalabi told French daily Le Monde by phone from southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.
Chalabi said he had been "extremely well-received" in Iraq where he returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, but asked if he intended to play a political role there, he said: "Absolutely not. I am not a candidate for any post."
According to a CIA report last month, Chalabi, as an Iraqi exile, would find little support among the Iraqi population.
U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said last week Iraqi exiles would have an important role to play in a postwar Iraqi government, but some may only stay temporarily.
Chalabi, who has close ties with Washington, said his vision for Iraq was a democracy with power in the hands of Iraqis.
"I don't believe the United Nations would be able to play a central role in Iraq. It has become a de facto ally of Saddam Hussein," he added, citing the refusal of U.N. Security Council members France and Germany to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Chalabi has said he will send a representative to a meeting between U.S. officials and Iraqi factions in Nassiriya on Tuesday.
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And for those of you who think syria is going to be attacked next, this doesn't really bode well for your cause:
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U.S. Navy Removing Two Aircraft Carriers from Gulf
Mon April 14, 2003 11:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is removing two of its five aircraft carriers from waters near Iraq, Navy officials said on Monday as the last stronghold of Saddam Hussein's collapsed government fell to U.S. Marines.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the carriers USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation had received orders to depart the Gulf in coming days. The Kitty Hawk will return to its home base at Yokosuka, Japan, and the Constellation to port at San Diego in California.
Removal of the carriers, with about 75 warplanes each, will reduce U.S. naval air power in the region to the carriers USS Nimitz in the Gulf and the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Harry Truman in the eastern Mediterranean.
During the three weeks of war, Navy jets have flown thousands of strike missions against Iraq from five U.S. aircraft carriers. But fighting is waning, and American Marines took over the Tikrit hometown of Iraq's missing President Saddam on Monday.
The U.S. Air Force has also struck Iraq using several hundred bombers and strike jets based in the region, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and in Britain.
American Vice Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. and allied naval forces in the Iraq War, told reporters on Saturday that one of the two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean might also soon depart for home. Warplanes from the Truman and Roosevelt have been launching strikes against targets in northern Iraq.
Keating noted that the Truman was on normally scheduled deployment to the Mediterranean, while the Roosevelt was dispatched to the region specifically for use against Iraq.
"It would be logical that we might retain ... one of the two carriers in the Med for a while and let the other one return home," he said.
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Of course we could base planes out of Iraq now, but all in all it looks like combat operations are wrapping up in the middle east.
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