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BAGHDAD, Monday (AFP)

US plans to topple President Saddam Hussein through covert actions were "nothing new", Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Monday.

"It's nothing new," Sabri told journalists after a Washington Post report Sunday said that US President George W. Bush had directed the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to overthrow Saddam this year, including authority to use lethal force. "The United States has plotted against Iraq for more than 30 years and plots against any country in the world which demonstrates independence," Sabri said.

"From time to time, the United States presents its policy with a misleading appearance to dupe (American) public opinion," the minister said.

The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Saddam, directs the Central Intelligence Agency to use all available tools, including the possible use of US Special Forces teams in the operation and authorisation to kill the Iraqi president if they were acting in self-defence.

It also provided for expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi government, military, security service, tapping into perceived anti-Saddam sentiment, according to the Washington Post.

The administration has allocated tens of millions of dollars to the covert programme, the paper said.

Sources told the Post that the CIA initiative was part of a broader Bush administration plan to remove Hussein that ranges from economic pressure to diplomacy and what officials believe will eventually include military action on a large scale.

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