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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (7748)	2/12/2003 11:54:12 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 25898

Rift Emerges Among Iraqi Opposition By BORZOU DARAGAHI Associated Press Writer February 12, 2003, 5:46 PM EST SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq -- The United States has told Iraq's opposition it plans to install a U.S.-military-run administration and keep many lower level officials of Saddam Hussein's party in their jobs after the Iraqi leadership falls, senior opposition officials said. U.S. envoys unveiled the proposal during a meeting in Ankara, Turkey last week on a "take it and don't you dare leave it" basis, said Kanan Makiya, a Brandeis University professor and a leading member of the Iraqi National Congress. The plan was outlined by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. State Department official David Pearce and senior White House and Pentagon officials, according to Makiya and an official who attended the meeting. "All the Iraqi opposition figures are completely sidelined," Makiya said Tuesday. "This plan will result in turning the Iraqi opposition into opponents of the United States." In London, some Iraqi opposition figures expressed doubt at Makiya's account, saying they did not believe the United States had finalized any proposal. "It's out of character of the American way of doing things," said Sharif Ali, a senior Iraqi National Congress official. "The United States has been extremely ambiguous about what will come about after the war, so it would be strange that now they would go into such detail." Sharif did not attend the Ankara meeting, however. Makiya also did not attend the meeting but said he was briefed by those who did. On Tuesday, two senior U.S. officials discussed a broad outline of how they would make the transition from a U.S.-run military administration to an Iraqi civilian government after Saddam falls. During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the United States would remain in Iraq "as long as is necessary" but "not one day more." He and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said U.S. objectives include preserving Iraq's territorial integrity and getting Iraqis inside and outside the country to work together to establish a government that represents various ethnic and religious groups. But opposition figures within the Iraqi congress fear that the U.S. plans, as related by Makiya, would effectively sideline a 65-member steering committee the opposition set up during a conference in London last month. A long-planned meeting of the committee set for Saturday in the autonomous section of northern Iraq was delayed because of security concerns, said Barham Salih, the prime minister of the Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The meeting will now be held sometime between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20 in the cities of Irbil and Salahuddin, he said Tuesday. The committee was established to serve as the basis of a transitional government. However, Makiya said that the U.S. military would control ministries during a transition period with Iraqis relegated to roles on an advisory board. Under the U.S. proposal, lower-level members of Saddam's Baathist Party would be allowed to keep their jobs in the Iraqi bureaucracy, another opposition figure said while speaking on condition of anonymity. "This policy was written by bureaucrats and technicians who know nothing at all of Iraqi reality," Makiya said. "It serves the interest of keeping the current Baathist power structure intact." Opposition leaders from the ethnic Kurdish community, however, indicated they were not as upset over the U.S. role as Makiya and others in the Iraqi National Congress were. That indicated a possible rift between Kurds and Arabs in the factious Iraqi movement opposed to Saddam. Hoshyar Zebari, foreign relations chief of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said a U.S. military occupation of Iraq was a logical step. "It's logical that it will happen if the U.S. is going to create this campaign and put its credibility and soldiers on the line," said Zebari, who attended the Ankara meeting. The Kurds have their own government with democratic institutions and popular support among the 4 million inhabitants of their self-rule area, established following the 1991 Gulf War. Zebari said the once-warring Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union are collaborating on a "Kurdistan national unity government" to bolster their case for federal, semiautonomous status within any future government. Kurdish officials suggested Wednesday that the interests of the Kurds and those of other opposition groups with no military force may not coincide. The oppressed minority has sought assurances that their 12-year experiment in self-rule won't be destroyed by any future Iraqi government. "The challenge for us is to have a political contract," said Zebari. Some of those attending the Ankara meeting included Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; Neschirwan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-controlled parts of northern Iraq; and representatives of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a main Iraqi Shiite militia. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press newsday.com