-Caveat Lector- Print this article | Close this window Anti-Saddam exiles snubbed in plan for military rule By GeneiveAbdo in Washington February 21 2003
The Bush Administration, planning for postwar Iraq, has turned its back on its former proteges in the exiled opposition in favour of a United States- run military government. The US fears the expatriate politicians lack democratic credentials and could open the country to Islamic influence from neighbouring Iran. Leaders in the Iraqi opposition, who have received funding and support from the US for more than a decade, have yearned to head a provisional government to replace Saddam Hussein. But the Administration has instead thrown its weight behind a Pentagon plan for a US-led military government, US officials and members of the exiled opposition said. Some opposition leaders have denounced the plan as little more than a blueprint for military occupation and an unwelcome throwback to Britain's colonial rule over Iraq after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. To counter the US plan, opposition groups will gather this week in Kurdish- held northern Iraq to create a leadership council they say should play a central role in a new government. Although US officials insist they are keeping all options open - including a possible role for the exile groups - there have been growing indications that opposition leaders have been taken out of the US plans. . In a meeting in Washington last Friday with the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz, five Iraqi opposition leaders expressed their concerns. "We told him that we opposed a military government run by the United States," said Emad Dhia, a former president of the Iraqi Democratic Forum. " Iraqis won't accept this. But Iraqis would love to see the US helping Iraqis run the country. This is where the military can help." Washington is considering a plan which would install a US military governor to rule Iraq for one to two years, according to US and Iraqi officials. Americans would staff the top levels of Iraqi ministries, leaving the lower positions to Iraqi technocrats, such as those in the ruling Ba'ath party. US officials would also appoint a committee of Iraqis to draft a constitution. There is still disagreement, however, over who would police cities and villages. The differences came to a head after the US began to distance itself from key opposition groups earlier this year. They include the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, which the US has funded with millions of dollars and which had once appeared to be Washington's choice to form a new government. Middle East experts who attended meetings between US officials and representatives of opposition groups said the Iraqis often bickered with one another and displayed an alarming naivety over how to run a government. The US feared exiled opposition leaders might try to exclude Iraqis now working with Saddam's regime from having a key role in state affairs, which could cause a rebellion. There were also differences within the Administration over which groups were more capable of leading a new government, sources said. "They [the Iraqis] don't trust each other sitting across the table from one another," said one analyst who attended the meetings. "So how can the United States trust them to run a new government in Baghdad?" Testifying before the Senate foreign relations committee last week, the Under-secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, made it clear that a military administration would take immediate control, later handing over to an elected Iraqi government. "The Iraqi diaspora is a great resource, but not a substitute for what all Iraqis will need to do together to work toward democracy in their country ... and while we are listening to what the Iraqis are telling us, at the end of the day the United States government will make its decisions based on what is in the national interest of the United States." There are also concerns that the opposition, some of whose leaders are based in Tehran, are growing too close to Iran. The Boston Globe This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/20/1045638426605.html Forwarded for your information. 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