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Interim Iraqi government is emerging, USA administration reports |
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Friday, 16 May 2003 |
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Retired Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, the head civil administrator in U.S.-occupied Iraq, said this week that the "nucleus" of an interim Iraqi government is emerging and its form should be clear by the end of May, which he called "a make-or-break month." The Washington Post quotes Garner as saying he expected the transitional government to have eight or nine Iraqi leaders, who would effectively become the heads of a committee that would govern Iraq under U.S. tutelage for a number of months until a new political system and government can be organized to replace the Baath Party rule of fallen president Saddam Hussein. Garner named five figures likely to be part of the committee, all Kurdish or exile leaders who have long been backed and financed by Washington.
The U.S.-backed anti-Hussein figures who have emerged as likely leaders of the interim Iraqi authority, Garner said, are Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Abdul Aziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Ayad Alawi of the Iraqi National Accord. In other news, many non-government aid agencies say they are keen for the United Nations - however imperfect - to take on a coordinating role, given their reluctance to cooperate too closely with the U.S.-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the Financial Times (U.K.) reports. Five of the bigger agencies recently established guidelines setting out the conditions under which they would operate, but one aid official said lines were already being crossed in the wake of U.S. pressure to speed up work in politically uncertain Shiite areas. The return of international staff reflects a sense in UN circles that unless it acts fast it may be left out of the loop, the paper reports. But efforts to negotiate a memorandum of understanding defining the relationship with the occupying coalition have encountered obstacles, officials said. |
