Exiled Iraqi General Envisions a War With Chemical Weapons

From the wintry cold of Denmark, the former commander of Iraqi forces has been keeping watch on the powerful military storm forming near the borders of his native country.

While he watches, Nizar al-Khazraji also has been keeping in touch with his network of sources back home, people who let him know about Saddam Hussein's lastest policies, plots and schemes. He says one of those schemes includes a decree Saddam issued in February outlawing the production or importation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "All ministries should implement this decree and take whatever measures are necessary to punish people who do not adhere to it," the decree read.

Khazraji (photo) said in a recent interview with DW-TV that he did not think much of the declaration. "Saddam is not in a position right now to produce weapons of mass destruction. That is why he took this step. In this simple way, he is trying to calm down the international community," he said.

A life of power and fear

Khazraji has good reason to know the ways of Saddam. He is a former military chief of staff and became a national hero in the war that Iraq waged against Iran in the 1980s. But these triumphant days ended after he criticized the conduct of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He eventually was placed under house arrest for five years, fearing that he would be executed. Finally, he was able to flee through northern Iraqi to Turkey, Syria and then Jordan. He eventually ended up in Denmark in 2001. Today, he cannot leave the country while Danish officials investigate a chemical weapons attack that Saddam's forces conducted against the Kurds of northern Iraq in 1988, killing 5,000 people.

While he denied any connection to that attack, he said he did not doubt that such weapons could be used if the United States invaded Iraq. "If (Saddam) still has weapons of mass destruction that the U.N. weapons inspectors have not found, he will use them," Khazraji said.

If the United States attacked, he said he expected the war to be a short one. "I doubt whether the Iraqi army will put up as tough a fight as they could. Particularly because the soldiers know that a war could have been avoided if Saddam had resigned," he said.

But even a short-term war would leave behind many long-term problems, he said. "The attack on Iraq will cause lasting damage to the infrastructure and environment," he said. "The next generation will also suffer because of this. The destruction of the Iraqi army can also lead to fighting among the different ethnic groups in Iraq and the country could fall into chaos."

Kurds pose potential problem

One source of this conflict could be the future of the Kurds who live in northern Iraq. Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, northern Iraq has been outside Baghdad's control, and U.S. and British jets enforce a no-fly zone over the area to keep it that way. The region is now controlled by two rival Kurdish factions -- the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

With the chances of a U.S. invasion rising, leaders of the Iraqi opposition gathered this week in the northern Iraqi city of Salahuddin to discuss the shape of a government after Saddam is overthrown. But the talks have been dominated by another subject -- the possibility that Turkish troops would join invading U.S. forces and that Kurdish groups would have to give up their weapons.

From Denmark, Khazraji sees only one way to avoid a destructive war. "Saddam is in love with himself and with power," he said. "But if things get tight for him, he could think about going into exil. Because he has vast wealth and because he is celebrated as a hero in many Arab countries."