Major U.S. funding for leading Iraqi opposition group halted

WASHINGTON -- U.S. funding for the leading Iraqi opposition group has been suspended because the organization failed to properly account for the money, a State Department official said Saturday.

Despite the suspension of Iraqi National Congress funds, the department still considers the group an important player in the opposition to Saddam Hussein, said Gregg Sullivan, spokesman for the Near Eastern Affairs bureau.

Sharif Ali Bin AlHussein, a spokesman for the Congress, said the letter was premature and was engineered by officials in the Bush administration who don't want aggressive action against Iraq.

AlHussein said the group actually was given until Jan. 15 to institute the financial controls and already has told the State Department the deadline would be met.

He said certain department officials "want to appease Saddam. They want to contain him and keep him in his box and don't want to take Saddam on as the head of a terrorist state."

The London-based confederation of opposition groups has considerable backing in Congress but is seen as largely ineffectual by many in the Bush administration.

Sullivan said the suspension is not policy-related, but was imposed because the State Department inspector general found the group lacked financial controls to account for its funds. No wrongdoing was found, he said.

"The financial controls were insufficient and did not match requirements under U.S. laws," Sullivan said. "They can't account for the money that was given."

Six-month deadline

The organization was given six months in June to establish the controls and missed the deadline.

The money was primarily for the group to collect information about the abuses by Hussein, present the findings to the United Nations and other countries, and possibly use it for a potential war crimes tribunal.

The group has requested $25 million from the United States, and asked that $17 million of it be used on operations inside Iraq. The Bush administration instead approved some $8 million in new grant money, prompting the opposition group to reject the offer.

Despite the rejection, the government was still providing $800,000 a month to the group until the suspension. The group was given $500,000 to cover its current bills.

Hawks in the Bush administration, led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, have been pressing for the U.S. military to take on Iraq and finish off Saddam, who was left in power after the Gulf War. Other administration officials, however, have argued to keep the focus on the anti-terror war against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.