Global Policy Forum

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

In Baghdad, Iraqi political leaders vowed today to press ahead with plans to hold a large national conference aimed at selecting a transitional government despite a decision by the top U.S. civilian administrator here to call off the assembly and appoint an interim advisory council with limited authority.

"The U.S. cannot cancel a conference that is led by Iraqis," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of exiles that had opposed former president Saddam Hussein's government and now is seeking to shape the country's new political system. "We believe it is very important for Iraqis to go on with this."

Qanbar said his group and other political parties would organize a national meeting next month where delegates representing Iraq's varied political, religious and ethnic groups would decide on the form and membership of a transitional administration. He said that body then would insist on assuming authority for many basic governance tasks from the U.S. government.

Such a meeting could prompt a confrontation between the U.S. occupation authority and several Iraqi political groups, such as the INC, that are widely regarded as key American allies in postwar Iraq. Should those parties insist that leaders elected at the meeting be recognized as the country's legitimate transitional government, it could strain their relations with the United States, possibly hindering U.S. efforts to work with some of the best-organized and most pro-Western political groups in Iraq.

The head of the U.S. occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, has insisted that a recently passed U.N. Security Council resolution gives the United States and Britain -- and not an Iraqi-led transitional government -- the ultimate authority for governing the country until a new constitution is authored, national elections are held and a new government is installed. As a consequence, he and other U.S. officials have said that Iraqi leaders will be limited to largely advisory roles in the postwar administration. Bremer also contends that an appointed advisory council, as opposed to one selected in a potentially lengthy series of public meetings, would be the fastest way to involve Iraqis in the reconstruction of their country.

Qanbar criticized Bremer's decision as a reversal of commitments made to the INC and other groups by other U.S. officials over the past few months. "We believe the announcement of Mr. Bremer is a regression of previous promises and deals with the Iraqi people," he said. Qanbar, whose organization has close ties to Pentagon officials and was until recently an exile group based in London, said an appointed council would "not be useful" and "will not be successful."

Representatives of other political parties said they also oppose Bremer's plan to appoint members of the council and insist that such decisions should be made by Iraqis, although they have not yet formally committed to participating in a national assembly that aims to supplant the interim council. They said they intend to urge Bremer to give them a role in selecting council members and would help to convene the conference only if he rejects that request. "The most important point for us is to have an Iraqi process to select an Iraqi authority," said Hamid Bayati, a senior official with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which represents many of the country's majority Shiite Muslims.

Hoshyar Zebari, a senior official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said he and other political leaders still hope they can persuade Bremer to reverse his decision. "We will try to convince him," he said.

Although Iraqi and U.S. officials said Bremer has assured the country's seven largest political organizations, whose leaders have formed a coalition called the Leadership Council, of representation on the interim council, some of the groups said they would not participate if they were not selected through an Iraqi-led process. "It will be very difficult for us to be part of an administration which is appointed by Mr. Bremer," Bayati said.

"It makes a big difference when the Iraqi people see Bremer appoint an administration and when the Iraqi people pick an administration," he said. "Our constituents wouldn't like it. This is why we can't be a part of it." Members of the Leadership Council, which includes the INC, two Kurdish parties and two parties representing Shiites, want a convention with about 300 delegates. They believe about 250 of them should be selected based on proportional representation, with each province holding its own assembly and sending one delegate per 100,000 residents. The seven organizations that make up the Leadership Council would send 65 delegates who were chosen at a meeting in northern Iraq before the war.

Iraqi political leaders said they want whatever transitional government is selected by the delegates to quickly assume responsibility for running several ministries and other government functions that do not involve military and security issues. Under Bremer's plan, however, the interim political council would largely be limited to advising U.S. officials on policy issues and nominating Iraqis to serve in senior positions in government ministries.

Some U.S. officials and Iraqis have argued that the assembly would give disproportionate influence to the seven groups, which has prompted their stiff resistance to Bremer's decision to appoint between 25 to 30 people to serve on the interim council. "They are upset because they won't be able to control the process as they had hoped," one U.S. official involved in the reconstruction effort said. "But what's important here is to bring in other Iraqis -- technocrats, for instance -- who are essential to restarting the government but who might not have been chosen at a convention filled with aspiring politicians."

Iraqi political leaders said they were told by U.S. officials that concerns about former members of Hussein's Baath Party trying to participate in the convention also pushed Bremer toward an appointed council. The U.S. official acknowledged, however, that the decision to appoint a council "may be misinterpreted by people" and said Bremer may amend his decision based on further consultations with Iraqi leaders.

In other developments today, the U.S. Central Command said an American solider died after being wounded in an attack in a town north of Baghdad. The soldier died Monday evening after assailants fired small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on an Army checkpoint near Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital. The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on U.S. troops in predominantly Sunni Muslim areas around Baghdad over the past two weeks.