LONDON: Exiled Iraqi officers on Sunday backed American efforts to remove Saddam Hussein but promised they would not seek to replace him with another military regime, after an unprecedented closed-door meeting in London to discuss efforts to topple the current regime.

The 60 senior officers, several with the rank of general, avoided grappling with blueprints for the Iraqi leader’s overthrow. Instead, in a move apparently calculated to reassure Iraqis that regime change would not result in another dictatorship, they approved a “Military Charter of Honour” declaring their readiness to join “any effort to establish a new democratic federal regime, based on the rule of law and civil society”.

They also said they would welcome “any foreign help” to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime and urged all Iraqi armed forces, both inside and outside the country, to work together to achieve this aim.

It was the first time that so many defectors from the Iraqi army had been able to meet and talk freely.

After a high-profile opening session at Kensington Town Hall on Friday, the officers transferred for security reasons to an anonymous three-storey cube of black glass in Neasden, north London, next to a home-improvements superstore.

A cable through an upper window provided electricity for the meeting from a mobile generator in the car park.

“It’s all the Americans’ fault,” one man complained. The US-backed Iraqi National Congress, which rents the premises, has not paid its electricity bill — allegedly because the State Department is withholding funds until the INC gives a clearer account of what it does with American taxpayers’ money.

Sources inside the meeting said there was more agreement than many had expected. The main debate was on whether Iraq should have a federal system of government, which the Kurds strongly favour because it will guarantee them a measure of autonomy.

The Turkoman representatives, and some others, urged that any decision on the system of government should be left to a referendum, but the Kurds insisted, saying that a referendum immediately after the overthrow of Saddam could inflame ethnic and sectarian rivalries.

The Charter of Honour commits the officers to abide by decisions of the Iraqi people and to withdraw from political affairs once regime change takes place.

It says the future role of the army should be limited to “national defence and not committing aggression”.

Arab analysts said the document would probably attract middle-ranking officers in Iraq, but some in the highest ranks would not welcome its emphasis on democracy.

The highest-ranking general in exile — Nizar al-Khazraji — was pointedly absent from the conference. He is understood to prefer rule by a military council if and when Saddam is overthrown.

Brigadier-General Najib al-Salihi, one of the central figures at the London meeting, predicted the other day that the Iraqi army would fold immediately if the United States attacked.

“Morale is at a disastrous level and the troops are sick of continuous war. Saddam will find himself surrounded by a few hundred soldiers,” he said.

He also dismissed US concerns about Saddam’s possible use of chemical and biological weapons, saying the Iraqi leader did not have the means to deliver such weapons.

The United States, Salihi said, must declare that it is only after Saddam and not his troops, otherwise it would not have support of the Iraqi people or the army.

“This cannot be two armies facing each other. The United States must make it clear that it is only after Saddam’s head,” he added.

He forecast a scenario in which Saddam would be on the run, suggesting that US aircraft policing the “no fly zones” could be used to back an advance on Baghdad by rebel forces from the north

“Saddam will try to escape, but he will find that he has nowhere to go,” Salihi said. “We will not be able to put him on trial. The people will get to him first.”

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday, warned Iran not to take advantage of a possible US attack by occupying Iraqi territory.

“The Iranians must not repeat the harm they inflicted on Iraq during the 1991 war and they must realize they cannot annex any inch of Iraq’s land,” he said in a statement issued on Saturday.

In the 1980s Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war leaving nearly a million soldiers dead or wounded.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.