I didn't see this posted:
No polls, but Iraq gets sovereignty - and troops
By Robert McMahon
NEW YORK - Iraq will not get its elections in June as planned by the United States. Sovereignty, though, will still be handed over to Iraqis, but US-led troops will remain in the country.
"So, the major change that happens on June 30 is that the Coalition [Provisional] Authority passes sovereignty back to the Iraqi government, the occupation ends, and coalition forces are no longer occupying forces," chief US administrator in Iraq, L Paul Bremer, said on Thursday. "They [US troops] are in partnership with the Iraqi people to protect Iraqi security."
Bremer added that regardless of how an Iraqi government is ultimately chosen, coalition forces will remain in place until Iraqi security forces are ready to protect their country by themselves.
Bremer was speaking after United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said on Thursday that it was not feasible to hold elections in Iraq before the US transfers power to Iraqis on June 30, the date set by a UN resolution following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime last year.
Annan said after a meeting of UN diplomats that the June 30 handover timeline should be respected: "We shared with them our sense of the emerging consensus or understanding that elections cannot be held before the end of June, that the June 30 date for handover of sovereignty must be respected, and that we need to find a mechanism to create a caretaker government and then help prepare the elections some time later in the future."
He also said that the UN was preparing recommendations about how to establish an interim Iraqi government - basically a caretaker administration - before elections can be held.
Annan's comments come after he met with his senior envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, and representatives of 46 states interested in Iraq's reconstruction.
Annan stressed that his recommendations on direct elections and the power transfer reflect the feelings of a range of Iraqi groups that met with Brahimi last week. The secretary general told the meeting that he will recommend a transitional governing mechanism that enjoys the broadest support of Iraqi groups.
Brahimi told reporters that the UN is willing to play a guiding role throughout the process. "The United Nations will be resuming its work to help the political process, first of all, up to the 30th of June and then after the 30th of June when sovereignty will be restored in Iraq."
US officials asked the UN to come up with proposals for Iraq's political future after Shi'ite leaders such as Grand Ayotollah Ali al-Sistani rejected original US plans for a series of regional caucuses.
Annan stressed that the UN must retain a clear, separate identity and be seen by the Iraqi people as independent.
Bremer also said the Iraqi constitution should acknowledge the Islamic nature of Iraq, but stressed that it not be based solely on sharia, or Islamic law. Instead, he said it should be founded on secular principles that guarantee rights recognized in liberal democracies.
"We said we seek a representative and sovereign Iraqi government. That government should be bound by a transitional administrative law that protects fundamental rights and provides a stable political structure. Under that law, Iraqis will enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the freedom of religious belief and practice," he said.
UN diplomats say that Brahimi favors a relatively short period between the handover of power and elections, with nationwide balloting possibly late this year.
Asia Times Online reports that serious political horse-trading is now likely to begin: already many of the 25 US-appointed members of Iraq's Governing Council have begun making bids to assume sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Other stakeholders, including Sistani and the country's Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population, Sunnis, long accustomed to power, and Kurds, hankering after self-rule in the north, will certainly also have something to say.
The US, the UN and Iraqi leaders have just four months to work out how all these groups can be accommodated into an administration which Iraqis will feel deserving of receiving the gift of "sovereignty". |
