WASHINGTON, Aug 9: Iraqi opposition leaders in Washington are scheduled to meet Vice President Dick Cheney through a teleconference on Saturday, administration officials said on Thursday.

“The vice-president will meet with them on Saturday via secure video from Wyoming,” a White House official said.

Leading members of the US-supported Iraqi National Congress will meet with undersecretaries of state and defence, Marc Grossman and Doug Feith, on Friday at the State Department to help coordinate Iraqi opposition activities. The meeting is an attempt by US officials to end infighting between the Iraqi rebels as the president’s advisers move closer to stepping up opposition activities inside Iraq.

But the meeting is also a small victory for Ahmad Chalabi, a founder of the Iraqi National Congress and the mastermind behind its on-the-ground intelligence operation that has been running inside Iraq for over a year.

Last week, the National Security Council began exploring ways the Pentagon could take over the function of Chalabi’s “information collection programme,” according to Bush administration officials. Should the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency assume bureaucratic responsibility for the programme, the US will begin covert activities against Saddam Hussein’s regime for the first time since the beginning of the Bush administration.

The Pentagon’s civilian leadership has fought for control of the Iraqi rebel account since the spring of 2001. Initially, the Pentagon’s civilian leaders wanted the responsibility for these functions to fall under the Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict offices in the Pentagon. But resistance from the State Department and the CIA conspired to keep the programme at Foggy Bottom, until last week.