Alternatives to Iraqi Council Eyed
Inaction of Hand-Picked Baghdad Officials Frustrates
Washington
By Robin Wright and
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post
Staff Writers - Sunday, November 9, 2003; Page A01:
Increasingly alarmed by the failure of Iraq's
Governing Council to take decisive action, the Bush administration
is developing possible alternatives to the council to ensure that
the United States can turn over political power at the same time and
pace that troops are withdrawn, according to senior U.S. officials
here and in Baghdad.
The United States is deeply frustrated with its hand-picked
council members because they have spent more time on their own
political or economic interests than in planning for Iraq's
political future, especially selecting a committee to write a new
constitution, the officials added. "We're unhappy with all of them.
They're not acting as a legislative or governing body, and we need
to get moving," said a well-placed U.S. official who spoke on the
condition of anonymity. "They just don't make decisions when they
need to."
Ambassador Robert Blackwill, the new National Security Council
official overseeing Iraq's political transition, begins an
unannounced trip this weekend to Iraq to meet with Iraqi politicians
to drive home that point. He is also discussing U.S. options with L.
Paul Bremer, civilian administrator of the U.S.-led Coalition
Provisional Authority, U.S. officials said.
The United States is even considering a French proposal, earlier
rejected, to create an interim Iraqi leadership that would emulate
the Afghanistan model, according to U.S. and French officials.
During the debate before the new United Nations resolution on
postwar Iraq was passed Oct. 17, France and other Security Council
members had proposed holding a national conference -- like the
Afghan loya jirga -- to select a provisional government that
would have the rights of sovereignty.
Among several options, the administration is also considering
changing the order of the transition if it looks as though it could
drag on much longer than the United States had planned. The United
States has long insisted that a new constitution was the essential
first step and elections the final phase in handing over power.
But now U.S. officials are exploring the possibility, again
backed by other Security Council members, of creating a provisional
government with effective sovereignty to govern until a new
constitution is written and elections held. This is again similar to
Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has governed while a new
national charter is written. Elections are scheduled there next
June, two years after the fall of the Taliban.
"If our exit is going to take longer, if it looks like it could
go more than two years to get it all done, then there's an incentive
to look into a transitional phase and some other governing
mechanism," a State Department official said.
The move comes after repeated warnings to the Iraqi body. Two
weeks ago, Bremer met with the council and bluntly told members that
they "can't go on like this," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad
said. Bremer noted that at least half the council is out of the
country at any given time and that at some meetings, only four or
five members showed up.
Since the council appointed 25 cabinet ministers in late August,
the body has done "nothing of substance," the U.S. official in
Baghdad added. The council has been seriously remiss in oversight of
its own ministers, holding public hearings, setting policy for
cabinet departments and even communicating with cabinet members, he
said.
The United States, which financially and politically backed
several of the council members when they were in exile, has also
been disillusioned by the council's inability to communicate with
the Iraqi public or gain greater legitimacy. The senior official in
Baghdad called the council "inept" at outreach to its own people.
As a result, the council has less credibility today than it did
when it was appointed, which has further undermined Iraq's
stability, U.S. officials here and in Baghdad said.
The administration is not yet at the point of abandoning the
council. "Ambassador Bremer is working with the Governing Council.
Our priority focus now in working with the council is to formulate a
plan to meet the December 15 deadline outlined in U.N. Resolution
1511, which calls for the council to formulate a timetable and
program for the drafting of a new constitution and for the holding
of democratic elections under that constitution," a White House
official said yesterday.
U.S. officials are still hoping that they can "stay the course,
only faster," the well-placed U.S. official said. If the council
exercised its responsibilities, Bremer would even be prepared to
hand over greater authority "by the truckload," the senior official
in Baghdad added.
But with time rapidly slipping away, the administration is
preparing options in the event that the Iraqi body does not come up
with a constitutional convention or meet the Dec. 15 deadline. The
CPA "hasn't totally given up yet on the Governing Council. There's
no sword yet over their heads," an administration official said.
"But we're certainly looking for change next year and if they can't
do it, then we have to be realistic."
Ironically, Iraqi council members counter that they should be
given the powers of a provisional government -- with rights of
sovereignty -- because they have no real powers to act as long as
the CPA occupies and rules Iraq.
In an interview, a council member also charged that the United
States has an "unrealistic idea" that difficult issues can be sorted
out in a day or two. "It's not possible," the Iraqi added. A senior
Iraqi National Congress official added that just because the
principals are not at meetings does not mean they are not working.
Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a council member with the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said the Iraqi mission should not be
rushed. "Figuring out how to write the constitution is the most
important thing we will do. We have to make sure we take the time to
do this right," he said. Council members, he added, were busy
talking to Iraqis about the issue informally.
Coming out of decades of either a dictatorship or a monarchy,
Iraqis also need time to learn how to use and share power.
"The council is trying its best. You have to remember we are 24
personalities," said Mowaffak Rubaie, a moderate Shiite Muslim
physician who returned from exile in Britain. "We have never worked
together. There is no precedent for what we are doing."
