CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar April 14 —
As the shooting dies down, the work of building a new Iraq begins
with a tentative step forward a U.S.-picked gathering of some of the
country's fractious factions to plot the nation's future.
Tuesday's meeting in the city of Ur, birthplace of the biblical
patriarch Abraham in ancient Mesopotamia, brings together
representatives from across the country: Kurds, Sunni and Shiite
Muslims, as well as exiles who have lived for years outside
Iraq.
It is, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, "an important
and great day for the Iraqi people."
But it also offers a preview of the kind of tumult expected in
the months ahead among groups that distrust America nearly as much
as they distrust each other.
Many Iraqis are staying away from Tuesday's meeting because they
oppose U.S. plans to install retired Gen. Jay Garner as an interim
leader.
On Monday, the largest Iraqi Shiite group, the Supreme Council
for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said it would boycott the meeting
and refuse to recognize the temporary U.S.-led administration.
"Iraq needs an Iraqi interim government. Anything other than this
tramples the rights of the Iraqi people and will be a return to the
era of colonization," Abdul Aziz Hakim, one of the group's leaders,
told a news conference in Tehran, Iran.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that not all groups will want to
participate. They have played down expectations the fact that the
conference is occurring at all, they say, is a success story in
itself.
This is only "the fledgling first meeting of what will hopefully
be a much larger series of meetings across Iraq," said Jim
Wilkinson, spokesman at U.S. Central Command.
"Not everyone can attend this meeting and the meeting is not
designed to represent every single constituency inside and outside
Iraq."
Other sessions around Iraq in the coming weeks are designed to
bring together other Iraqis and exiles, and a national conference
will ultimately select the interim authority, a senior U.S.
government official told reporters here Monday.
The official said he hoped the administration would be selected
within weeks, and that he anticipated that the United Nations would
have a role in the process once the national conference occurs.
Many allies support an international conference to pick leaders
of the interim government, as was done in Afghanistan. But the
United States wants to assemble an interim government made up of a
mix of supportive Iraqi nationals and exiles.
Tuesday's meeting is a first step toward that goal. About 100
Iraqis are expected to attend: half from inside Iraq, half
exiles.
The moderator will be Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House envoy to
Iraq who also played a key role in guiding the formation of a
transition government in Afghanistan. Garner is also expected, along
with representatives from coalition countries Britain, Australia and
Poland.
Wilkinson stressed that the meeting was designed to get Iraqis
talking about what they want for the future, and described the
agenda as an "unscripted, free-flowing forum of ideas," that would
be dominated by Iraqis talking, not Americans.
But an unscripted discussion in Ur could bring Iraq's hostilities
to the surface. They're never far below.
There is the divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims a Sunni
minority that controlled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and a Shiite
majority that wants to dominate. But even among Shiite groups, there
is fierce enmity; last week, a cleric was hacked to death in the
holy city of Najaf.
Kurdish groups, meanwhile, appear unwilling to compromise on
their demands for more autonomy, and for expanding their borders to
include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and the Kurdish parts of Mosul.
Neighboring Turkey, fearing an uprising by its own Kurds, says this
is unacceptable.
But the Kurdish groups are divided, too. The two major factions
formed an alliance during the war, but now one has accused the other
of breaking an agreement not to send Kurdish troops into Kirkuk.
Neither is there agreement among Iraqis on America's role.
Ahmed Chalabi, head of the London-based Iraqi National Congress,
said the United States "should maintain military forces in Iraq
until the first constitutionally, democratically elected government
takes over."
How long will that take? "Less than two years," he said.
But other opposition leaders say privately they fear the U.S.
administration is using the meeting to try to force Chalabi on
them.
Chalabi was the first top Iraqi opposition leader airlifted by
the U.S. military into southern Iraq a move interpreted by some as a
way to help him build a power base among the Shiites, though
American officials say he was brought in merely because he offered
forces to the coalition.
Neither Chalabi nor many other leaders of anti-Saddam groups are
likely to show up at the meeting; lower-level delegates are expected
in their place. U.S. officials say the meeting was designed to be a
working-level affair to allow Iraqis to get to know Garner.
But many of those who are attending say they don't want Garner
leading the interim administration.
"We will discuss ideas of how to set up an Iraqi administration
to fill the political, security and sovereignly vacuum," said
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a physician and opposition activist who is
attending.
"We will press for any Iraqi civilian administration regardless
of what the American say, an administration by Garner is not
acceptable."
He said the Americans have provided opposition figures with this
outline of how Garner's administration would be structured:
Each ministry would be headed by an American, either military or
civilian. Each minister would have two American deputies and eight
American advisers. The minister would have four other Iraqi advisers
from inside the country and four Iraqi exiles.
photo credit
and caption:
Iraqis children smile at a
soldier from the 3rd Battalion of the 187th Regiment of the
101st Airborne Division as they deploy in Baghdad, Iraq,
Monday, April 14, 2003. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc
Bouju)
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