Many circling around the Iraqi power vacuum

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Many Circling Around the Vacuum
Sanjay Suri - IPS 4/10/03

LONDON, Apr 11 (IPS) - The political vacuum in Iraq is turning out to be easier to spot than to fill. Proposals and ideas are coming crowding in, but the names surfacing most often are not necessarily going to be the most acceptable.

Several opposition groups from Iraq strongly oppose any move to appoint Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress as the administrator, or the chief Iraqi adviser to a U.S. administration.

There is considerable opposition even to an interim U.S.-led administration. Nor is there agreement on a caretaker government led by the United Nations. A meeting of opposition leaders - or would-be government leaders as they have now become - was called in Nasiriyah this weekend. That meeting has been put off, and it is no longer certain when the meeting will take place and where.

"Any group that is imposed on us will be opposed," says Dr Hamid Al Bayatti from the Supreme Council for Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), a leading Shia group in northern Iraq which controls Shia militants known as the Badr group.

"An imposition of any person is against democracy," he told media representatives in London Friday. "If the Americans decide to include some and exclude others, it will backfire on them."

Other opposition leaders have strongly opposed Chalabi's move into southern Iraq with a force of 700 men to support the U.S. troops. "That has sent the wrong signal to political parties," says Dr Laith Kubbah, an academic who has held leading positions in the Iraqi opposition over the last 20 years. He is co-founder of the Iraq National Group based in Washington.

"The message is that if one group can bring armed men into the theatre, why not others?" he said. "Other groups have thousands of armed men with them," he said. "We hope this is not the beginning of the creation of warlords and militias among each political party."

Latif Rashid from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said: "We have not worked for removal of SaddamHussain only to be replaced by another dictator. I am not saying Chalabi is a dictator, but we will not allow anyone to be imposed on us."

But the leaders are agreed on an urgent need to fill the vacuum. Kubbah says people are glad to see Saddam Hussein go, "but no one is happy about the ransacking and the lawlessness in Baghdad."

There is an immediate need to put pressure on the U.S. to maintain law and order. People smell a vacuum and the absence of authority, and that has led to the lawlessness, Kubbah said. "But enforcing law and order means use of force, and we must quickly create the right political context for use of force."

Bayatti says the U.S. and British forces are not a police force. "We need Iraqis to be in charge," he said, adding that major Iraqi opposition parties need to play a role together to fill the gap.

The Shia majority is likely to demand at last a rightful say in the running of Iraq. Shias, who are about 65 per cent of the population of Iraq, were suppressed under the largely Sunni-led regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Shias are the majority in Iraq, the Americans cannot sideline us," he said. "The Americans can either heed the make-up and components of Iraq or impose their own will. And if they try to impose their own will, they will be rejected and opposed. There will be chaos."

A conference attended by about 400 Iraqi opposition leaders in London in December had agreed that an Iraqi-led government must take over immediately after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Many of those leaders now seem to oppose joining an administration under U.S. occupation.

U.S. leaders have indicated meanwhile that they will be in charge of administering Iraq for at least six months.

"They can take charge of meeting the humanitarian needs of the moment," said Kubbah. "They are the force on the ground, and they can meet the immediate needs of the people. But the U.S. cannot provide security on their own without involving the Iraqi people."

Where the leaders differ is on which Iraqi people should be involved, and on what basis. The leaders are not agreed that the United Nations can supervise an involvement of the Iraqi people either.

"The UN has a role to play, and they can give legitimacy to an arrangement, but without exercising executive power," said Rashid. "The UN has little respect among Iraqi people," Rashid said.

"They did little to reduce the suffering of people despite their resolutions, the staff they sent to Iraq is far less competent than local Iraqis, and they have not been able to use the money they had."

In the Kurdish areas in the north the UN still has an unspent budget of almost three billion dollars, Rashid said. "This is when schools and hospitals have needed urgent attention. They have left a lot of gaps; they could have done much more."

Not the U.S., not the UN, but Iraqis. Not the Iraqis the U.S. is talking about; the rest are not being able to meet and talk. While the leaders talk about what can be done and what not, the vacuum gets bigger.

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Chalabi's forces enter Baghdad
The Washington Times - www.washingtontimes.com
Chalabi's forces enter Baghdad
Sharon Behn and Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Published April 17, 2003

Ahmed Chalabi, longtime London-based Iraqi opposition leader, rode unexpectedly into Baghdad yesterday with more than 100 "Free Iraqi Forces" troops, strengthening his position in a swiftly developing race for power among disparate Iraqi factions.
Driving in a convoy of trucks and pickups laden with weapons and food, Mr. Chalabi and his U.S.-trained forces braved a blinding sandstorm in their push to reach Baghdad after years of exile and the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist regime.
Mr. Chalabi, the highly visible face of the umbrella Iraqi National Congress (INC), is one of several leading opposition figures, from exile groups and from within Iraq, expected to gather in the capital shortly to form an executive council to lead the nation.
That council - to be established outside the process begun under U.S. supervision on Tuesday - would work with American forces and civilian administration to rebuild the country, said INC spokesman Entifad Qanbar in a telephone interview from Doha, Qatar.
"I cannot wait to find the grave of my first cousin, who Saddam's men murdered in public 13 years ago," declared an emotional Aras Kareem, leader of the about 700-strong Free Iraqi Forces.
"It's my own city, which I love, where I was born, went to school, where I had so many friends, and so many were killed by Saddam's men. My first cousin, Ayid, who was my age, was shot in the head in front of his family."
"I want to help make it safe, remove the influence of the Ba'ath Party and bring about democracy," he said as he clambered aboard the last truck departing the southern city of Nasiriyah for the capital.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, two men identified as being close associates of the INC said at a news conference that they had been chosen to head the capital's interim government with the consent of U.S.-led coalition forces, Agence France-Presse reported.
Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi and "General" Jaudat Obeidi said they had been selected by an assembly of officials and religious leaders to act as head of the city's provisional administration and mayor, respectively.
The INC representative in Qatar, however, said he had no knowledge of the appointments. "I know nothing about it," Mr. Qanbar said, adding that he knew Mr. Zubeidi but did not recognize Mr. Obeidi. "I know the INC is talking to them, [but] I don't know if they are acting on their own." U.S. Central Command forces based in Qatar also drew a blank. "I don't have anything on that," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens.
Taking his first steps in Baghdad since the monarchy was overthrown in 1958 and his family was forced to flee Iraq, Mr. Chalabi made clear he was there to stay.
"Our plans are to establish ourselves here, to set up an office and begin the work toward reconstructing democracy and civil society in Iraq," INC spokesman Zaab Sethna told Reuters news agency. "His first plan is to go see his old home and then start building democracy in Iraq," said Mr. Sethna, who traveled in Mr. Chalabi's convoy.
Within the next two weeks, Mr. Chalabi and other opposition figures are to convene the Iraqi Leadership Council, a continuation of a political process begun by the main exile opposition parties last year in London, then consolidated in northern Iraq in February.
The Iraqi Leadership Council, which will be open to opposition figures on the ground, includes the INC, the Iraqi National Accord (INA), the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and a Sunni representative.
The INC hopes that out of this meeting will emerge "some sort of executive party or council" of perhaps "one person but not more than three people" that would become part of a transitional government until general elections are held in the country, Mr. Qanbar said.
"It must be for Iraqis to decide the future government of our country. The Iraqi forces have been actively working together to liberate our country and are now working to create a democratic future for our country," Mr. Chalabi said in a statement.
The council meeting, the INC said, will run parallel to a U.S.-sponsored forum to be held in Baghdad, a continuation of a session held Tuesday in the ancient city of Ur, near Nasiriyah. "It's a complementary process," said U.S.-based INC spokeswoman Riva Levinson. "One is a consultation of Americans and Iraqis, and one is a consultation of Iraqis amongst themselves. Both processes have to go forward."
But others said the process might not be so clear-cut.
"It is a very fluid situation in Iraq, and many are elbowing for the front row," said Saleh al-Shaikhly, a London-based Iraqi exile and president of the INA.
The Nasiriyah meeting brought together top U.S. officials, including President Bush's envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad; retired Lt. Gen Jay Garner, the Pentagon's pick to run the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance; exile opposition representatives; and local tribal and religious leaders.
Although the INC insists the council meeting will be independent of U.S. influence and has been trying to distance itself from accusations that it is too close to the Bush administration, Mr. al-Shaikhly said that as long as the United States is in charge of Iraq, it called the shots.
"Under the present circumstances, nothing can take place in Iraq without the United States giving its blessing," he said in a telephone interview.
-------------------------------------
Paul Martin contributed to this report from Nasiriyah, Iraq.

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Many circling around the Iraqi power vacuum

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