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Much of the war against Saddam has faded to the level of indistinct chatter, where it is hard to sort signal from noise. The problem is bad on the military front, but it is even worse among the Iraqi insurgents, who have to be coached, caressed and cajoled by the State Department. Last weekend 300 delegates from various Iraqi opposition groups gathered in New York City, where U.S. officials hoped they would finally lay aside their feuds and present a unified front. That didn't happen. The major group representing Iraq's southern Shi'ites, the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, didn't even show.
The confusion helps explain why Saddam seems to have grown comfortable with his situation. Though the Desert Fox air campaign last December rattled his regime, and though there have been outbreaks of violence among Shi'ites in southern Iraq and even Baghdad, his security services always ruthlessly stamp out dissent. The CIA still believes Saddam will be eliminated by someone in his inner circle, but intelligence agents don't see how a "silver bullet" would ever get close to him. He has multiple layers of security around him, never announces his travel plans ahead of time, sleeps in a different bed every night and uses doubles for public events and even some private meetings.
And the U.N.'s oil-for-food program is helping Saddam stay in power. The nearly $5 billion worth of food and medicines the U.N. has allowed the regime to buy with oil exports has in some cases been re-exported for profit or its distribution in the country has been cruelly manipulated by the government to control hungry groups. Meanwhile, Saddam, who intelligence agencies believe is a billionaire, has built 48 palaces for himself since the Gulf War ended. Last April, according to a State Department report, he opened a vacation resort west of Baghdad for his cronies. It is complete with 625 homes, a man-made lake, stadium, amusement park and Ferris wheel.
Chalabi and the other exile leaders want arms and real military training from Washington now. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (P.U.K.) and the other Kurdish faction in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (K.D.P.), say they have 80,000 lightly armed fighters, while the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq claims a force of 20,000 Shi'ite soldiers who have been launching raids in the south. Chalabi wants to train about 500 exile intelligence operatives, who would first infiltrate Iraq. They would be followed by 5,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi guerrillas, who would seize territory under U.S. air cover and encourage demoralized Iraqi army units to defect to their cause. Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey would take U.S. support a step further. Containing Saddam with sanctions and almost weekly aerial attacks against his sam batteries "has failed," Kerrey argues. "I favor committing U.S. ground forces and air forces" to topple the dictator.