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- GRAPEVINE, Page 17His Successor? Probably a Kinsman
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- By GUY GARCIA/Reported by Sidney Urquhart
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- Much as they want to see Saddam killed, overthrown or tried
- for war crimes, several top Bush Administration advisers and
- Arab leaders are quietly pulling for some of Saddam's nastiest
- henchmen to survive in power. If Iraq's Sunni Muslim ruling
- elite were to be ousted wholesale, no alternative government
- could easily take charge of the country's highly politicized
- military and secret police. Fear of these institutions is the
- strongest glue binding Iraq's fractious populace, including its
- long-oppressed Shi`ite Muslim majority and its rebellious
- northern Kurds. "When the Iraqis stop fighting us," says a
- senior Bush adviser, "they may turn to fighting each other."
- The advisers believe postwar stability in Iraq and the region
- is better served if the country's next ruler is "someone in the
- clan" -- one of Saddam's close associates, probably a relative
- from his hometown of Tikrit.
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