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— By Adrian Croft

NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - The United States launches talks with divided and distrustful Iraqis on Tuesday on how Iraq will be ruled now that Saddam Hussein has been deposed.

But as participants gathered in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya, skepticism ran deep among once-exiled groups united by little other than their delight that Saddam's rule was over and unease at being seen as too close to the United States.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) but there was no word that it had begun. One major group has boycotted the meeting and another has sent only minor officials.

Ahmad Chalabi, a high-profile leader backed by the Pentagon, will not attend but will send a representative, and Iraq's main Shi'ite Muslim opposition group decided not to come at all.

"It is not to the benefit of the Iraqi nation," Abdelaziz Hakim, a leader of the Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said.

"From the beginning, independence has been our manifesto. We don't accept a U.S. umbrella or anybody else's."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw put a brave face on the boycott, saying SCIRI were enjoying their new democratic right to choose, and tried to dampen expectations about the meeting.

"It is not a one-off, it's the beginning of a process to restore governance," he told a news conference in the Gulf state of Qatar, home to the U.S.-led war headquarters.

"It's a start, and I am glad that politics has broken out, that there is vocal opposition, that these Shias feel able to express their opinions -- under the Saddam regime if they had expressed opinions like that they would have ended up in the torture chambers in Basra or ended up dead."

"This is not an American or British operation but one we have sponsored to get things going," he said, when asked if it would have been better for the United Nations to run the talks. SWIPE AT PARIS AND MOSCOW

That question elicited a swipe at U.N. Security Council permanent members France and Russia, who have scotched Anglo-American hopes that once the war was over they might set aside their vocal opposition to "regime change" imposed on Iraq.

Straw said London and Washington saw a vital role for the United Nations but that Security Council members had to accept the new reality on the ground in Iraq and cooperate.

"It is the responsibility of all members of the Security Council, but particularly those with vetoes, not to play games but to recognize this new reality and to move forward," he said.

The United Nations, promised some sort of role by Washington under pressure from Britain, will attend as an observer.

The meeting will be overseen by Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general who will head an interim administration until the Iraqis themselves take charge.

He told the newspaper USA Today it was important to move quickly to get a transitional administration in place.

"My fear right now is every day we delay we're probably losing some momentum, and there's perhaps some vacuums in there getting filled that we won't want filled," he said.

About 60 Iraqis, representing radical and mainstream Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim groups, Kurds and supporters of the monarchy overthrown in 1958, are expected to attend the meeting 375 km (235 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

THEY WANT US OUT

Some groups are wary of being seen as too close to the U.S. invaders and the U.S.-led interim administration.

"They want us to leave as quickly as possible. They want to be responsible for their own country again," Brigadier General Tim Cross, the top British official in the effort to run postwar Iraq, told reporters on the eve of the meeting.

"There's no way the U.S. and British are going to dominate the process," he added at a news conference in Kuwait.

U.S. sources say the meeting will be as free-form as possible, but the main proposal is likely to be that the Iraqis generate their own nationwide decision-making structure.

If the talks succeed, similar meetings may be held elsewhere in Iraq to draw together as many different voices as possible.

Cross said he thought it could be more than six months before an Iraqi government takes office. (Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Kuwait)

photo credit and caption:

Sergeant Robbie Coppola of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Fox Company 'Raiders,' sits with Iraqis in the southern city of Nassiriya, April 14, 2003. Plans for a U.S.-led administration of postwar Iraq face an early test on April 15 when U.S. officials and divided and distrustful Iraqi factions meet in Nassiriya. Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters

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