IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS

An Iraqi opposition group.

The Iraqi National Congress (INC) is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group founded in 1992. It was formed with the aid of and under the direction of the United States government following the 1991 Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Selected to chair the executive council was Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Iraqi Shiʿite Muslim and mathematician by training. The INC represented the first major attempt by opponents of Hussein to join forces, bringing together not only Sunni and Shiʿa Arabs (both Islamic fundamentalist and secular) and Kurds, but also varying political tendencies, including democrats, nationalists, ex-military officers, and others.

In June 1992 nearly 200 delegates from dozens of opposition groups met in Vienna, along with Iraq's two main Kurdish militias, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (Iraq) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In October 1992 the major Shiʿite groups joined the coalition and the INC held a pivotal meeting in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, in which it chose a three-person Leadership Council and a twenty-six-member Executive Council. A number of opposition groups continue to belong to the INC, but most have since gone their own ways, leaving the INC primarily a vehicle for Chalabi and his supporters.

The INC's political platform promised human rights and rule of law within a constitutional, democratic, and pluralistic Iraq; preservation of Iraq's territorial integrity; and complete compliance with international law, including United Nations resolutions relating to Iraq. Like the majority of other Iraqi opposition groups, its stated goal was to topple Saddam's regime and its replacement with a democratic form of government with federalism and decentralization at its basis. The INC received $12 million of covert CIA funding between 1992 and 1996. After several years of nonfunding, the administration of George W. Bush agreed to give $8 million of the $25 million that the INC requested in January of 2002.

The lNC was subsequently plagued by the dissociation of many of its constituent groups from the INC umbrella, a cutoff of funds from its international backers (including the United States), and continued pressure from Iraqi intelligence services. A major problem the INC faced after the American occupation of Iraq starting in 2003 was the limited degree of support it commands inside the country.

see also bush, george w.; central intelligence agency (cia); chalabi, ahmad; hussein, saddam; iraq.

Bibliography

Marr, Phebe. "Iraq 'The Day After': Internal Dynamics in Post-Saddam Iraq." Naval War College Review 56, no.1 (2003): 13–29.

kristian p. alexander