
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040349
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SOURCES: CIA AIDED REBELS

President Bush signed secret orders in January authorizing the CIA to aid rebel factions inside Iraq, around the time he was publicly exhorting the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein, intelligence sources said Wednesday.

The orders were described as granting broad and general authority for clandestine activities to undermine the rule of President Saddam and to support efforts by opposition forces inside Iraq, said the sources.

Bush declined to comment on the matter, saying he never talks publicly about intelligence matters.

But he reiterated that the United States will not now intervene militarily to protect Iraq's minority Kurds and Shiites from a brutal quashing of their uprising against Saddam.

It could not be immediately learned to what extent the CIA authority might have been used. However, NBC News reported Tuesday that the Voice of Free Iraq, a clandestine anti-government radio station, operated during the Kuwait conflict under CIA financing.

Such broadcasts are a common tool employed by the Central Intelligence Agency when it seeks to covertly aid political opposition groups.

If the authority has been used to aid the rebels, it would add concrete actions to the verbal encouragement Bush and other administration officials have given rebels to overthrow Saddam.

Critics have accused Bush of misleading resistance groups into believing the United States would come to their aid if they challenged Saddam's rule.

by CNB