Al Jezeera: Iraq interim administration process under way

Interim administration process gets under way
Al Jezeera - 4/15/03

The first talks on the future of Iraq attended by Iraqi political and religious leaders, as well as US and British officials, ended on Tuesday with an agreement to meet again in 10 days.

Participants met in a makeshift US air base beside the remains of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur in southern Iraq in a tent pitched next to the famed Ziggurat temple. About 60 Iraqis -- Shia and Sunni Muslims, Kurds and supporters of the monarchy axed in 1958 -- were expected to attend the meeting 375 km (235 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Jay Garner, the former US general in now in charge of crafting a new Iraq, opened the conference saying: "A free and democratic Iraq will begin today." But in nearby Nasiriya, thousands of Iraqis protested that they did not need American help now Saddam Hussein had gone.
US officials want Iraqis to form their own decision-making structure ahead of elections, but they said on Tuesday the various leaders would just get acquainted.

Little news seeped out of the talks.The concluding statement comprised a number of resolutions calling for a democratic Iraq that should not base on ethnic and racial foundations. The statement affirmed the necessity of governing the country by law and respecting pluralism and woman rights. It also stressed that Iraqis should choose their own leaders, denouncing all kinds of political violence.

The participants agreed that Iraqis and US-led forces should work together to achieve security and restore basic utilities. They stressed the importance of dissolving all Ba'ath institutions and opening a serious dialogue amongst all national powers. They also warned of serious consequences of looting and discussed the role to be played by religion in the state's running.

Ayad Jamal El-Deen, a religious cleric in Najaf said: "I call for the establishment of a secular ruling system which completely separates religion from state to save religion. Genuine secularity does not persecute religion and does not speak on its behalf. Religious institutions should be part of the civil society, enjoying their rights of thinking and expression and with no one having the right to interfere in their affairs. It is the time to stop seizing the holy Quran; it is time to stop exploiting Islam. We wont accept any tyrant ruler speaking on behalf of Islam.

The meeting's final declaration called for building a democratic Iraq that would take into consideration the country's patchwork ethnic and religious communities. It also stressed that Iraqis should be able to choose their own leaders and denounced all forms of political violence. The participants agreed that Iraqis and US-led forces should work together to achieve security and stability in Iraq.

Establishing a stable government is a daunting task in a divided and now leaderless country. Exiles claim a say, as do those who lived for decades under Saddam Hussein's iron rule. Tribal, ethnic and religious leaders, particularly Shias, have loyal followings. Stopping the country fragmenting into Kurdish, Shia and Sunni zones will be a tough struggle -- but one that Iraq's neighbours, fearing a reaction among their own minorities, insist on.

The whole process of building peace faces the same dilemma as war did: should the United Nations play a major or minor role, or should the United States call the tune? The United Nations, promised some sort of role by Washington under pressure from Britain, was in attendance only as an observer.

Britain's Straw said a bigger UN role hung on France and Russia now putting aside opposition to the war and cooperating. "It is the responsibility of all members of the Security Council, but particularly those with vetoes, not to play games but to recognise this new reality and to move forward," he said.

After the United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United Nations oversaw the selection of a government and the administration of the country.

Role for ancient regime members?

A spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress told BBC radio that leaders of the Iraqi opposition planned to hold their own meeting in Baghdad soon. Dozens of Shia held a protest against Chalabi, saying he did not represent them. Chalabi bills himself as a secular Shia and has lived in exile since 1958.

A Shia religious cleric from Najaf called on the establishment of a secular ruling system which separated religion from state. Cleric Ayad Jamal El-Deen told Al-Jazeera TV religious institutions under a free secular state would not persecute religion.

"Iraqis must rule Iraq. We don't need either an American general or a UN bureaucrat in charge," said Zaab Sethna.

Saddam Hussein's police are already back on the streets to help quell days of looting and violence. "The use of the former regime's police...puts them in the position of sort of starting denazification by rehiring the Gestapo," military analyst Dan Plesch told CNN television.

But Britain's top ORHA official said they were small fry. "We've been successful in taking the head off the regime, in taking off the top layer," Brigadier General Tim Cross told BBC radio. "Most of the other people who are trying to rebuild their lives will put aside the Baathist regime with great pleasure."

Outside the air base, a few tribal leaders asked to join the talks but were kept behind the barbed wire cordon. "We need this meeting because we need freedom from Saddam Hussein and we need a new government for Iraq," said one of them, Sheikh Jabar Alowayed.

Winning the peace looks set to be more difficult than winning the war. Competing interests among different Iraqi groups may confound United States officials who are now turning their attention to Iraq's immediate future with a meeting intended to identify points of consensus.

The agenda is ambitious, no less than achieving an interim Iraqi authority within weeks by calling on tribal and religious leaders, as well as exiled Iraqis returning in the last few days. US officials recognise that they have little knowledge how many of the invited groups will actually send representatives. By inviting over 100 groups, any consensus will be hard won.

The meeting in Nasiriya promises to be fraught with accusations and mistrust with many parties feeling the US is out to dictate who rules Iraq in the coming years. The main group representing Iraq's majority Shia boycotted the meeting, protesting US plans to place retired Gen. Jay Garner as an interim leader. Ahmad Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress, did not attend but sent a representative in a move widely seen as an attempt to counter criticism that he is a yes-man to America.

Both Iraqis and US officials are already trying to dampen expectations for much progress at the meetings to come, with one US official calling it only "the start of a national dialogue among Iraqis". Intifadh Qanbar, an Iraqi National Congress official stationed at Central Command in Qatar, said he thought it was worthwhile just for the groups to come together, even in this preliminary way.

"This is just a gathering, to show that Iraqis are sitting together and starting to work," Qanbar said. If the US military wants to help organise "a meeting of people to say hello and show some sort of friendship and relationship, that's fine with me."

However, it is unlikely that the US just wants to act as honest broker, having spent billions of dollars invading Iraq and straining its international relationships in the process. The US has a great many interests, leading to fears that it might try to prevent the newly liberated nation from erupting into violence along ethnic and religious lines by encouraging the emergence of yet another strongman.

US officials are hoping that ideas for how to choose members of Iraqi interim authority will become clearer as this and other meetings continue while the interim US led authority retains power over many day-to-day functions of Iraqi society for an unspecified period of time. US officials yesterday insisted they were merely trying to control the process, not dictate its outcome. "I don't think we are in the business of anointing anyone."

However, the Pentagon flew in Chalabi to Nasiriya last week where 500 fighters he helped vet to form the core of a new army are now stationed. Commentators may charge the Pentagon with trying to control the outcome of the democratic process by favouring Chalabi. But it is no secret that Ahmed Chalabi, viewed inside Iraq as an outsider, is not popular with the State Department or the CIA.

Other groups given key roles at a White House meeting last summer have included the Iraqi National Accord, a broad-based group in London; a constitutional monarchy group; and the Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading group representing Shia interests; as well as two Kurdish parties in northern Iraq.

But Hamid al-Bayati, the London representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said yesterday that his group would not take part in any meeting organised by the US military."We're going to be part of an Iraqi government, organized by Iraqis, selected by Iraqis. We can't be part of a government under military rule," al-Bayati said