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November 26, 2002
Iraqi Opposition Circulates Plan for Post-Hussein Era
By JUDITH MILLER
Iraqi opposition figures are circulating a detailed plan for transforming Iraq from a dictatorship into an essentially secular democracy in two to three years if President Saddam Hussein is removed from office.
The 98-page report, "The Transition to Democracy in Iraq," was hammered out after fierce debate among representatives of a State Department-supported group that consists of Iraqi intellectuals in exile, representatives of human rights groups, other private organizations and representatives of leading Iraqi opposition groups.
The document suggests that the groups have been able to compromise over divisive issues like the role of religion and ethnicity in a post-Hussein Iraq.
It endorses a set of principles that its authors say enjoys broad support among opposition groups, like democracy, federalism, respect for the rule of law and human rights and a "road map" for the transition to a government that would begin organizing in exile.
Today, a State Department official welcomed what he characterized as the latest "draft" of the document and endorsed several of its major principles.
He cautioned that the administration did not favor the "road map" that the paper recommended and that it opposed any effort to establish a government in exile that might "disenfranchise" prospective opponents of Mr. Hussein's government in Iraq.
The major authors discussed the paper today at a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and other White House officials.
People at the meeting said Ms. Rice had invited the group back to discuss their ideas further next week.
She had previously expressed reservations about establishing a transition government that might rule out internal alternatives to the fractious opposition that has emerged in exile, officials said.
The document being circulated is widely expected to be considered next month at a major conference of opposition groups.
Deep ideological disputes and mistrust of one another forced opposition leaders to postpone such a meeting, which the Bush administration had intended to be a showcase for an emerging unity among the opponents of President Hussein.
It had originally been scheduled for Nov. 22 in Brussels. But opposition leaders said they now expected it to be held on Dec. 10 in London.
The paper maps out a process that would culminate in no more than three years in elections in which Iraqis would vote on a Constitution and the structure of a new government, almost certainly without the participation of the current governing party, the Baath party.
The report says a "transitional" government would be responsible for guaranteeing basic human and political rights. Torture would be forbidden, as would arbitrary arrest, detention and exile. All citizens, irrespective of sex, race, religion or ethnicity, would be considered equal.
Some issues remain so divisive that the authors chose to offer competing alternative visions or to defer them. Although they recommends that Iraq undergo "de-Baathization" similar to the "de-Nazification" of Germany after World War II, the paper also notes that some opposition groups strongly oppose outlawing the Baath party.
Similarly, although the authors clearly favor separation of religion and state, they defer the issue of what relationship should exist between the new state and religion, specifically between the government and Islam, to which the overwhelming majority of Iraqis subscribe.
The major sticking point with the Bush administration is the two-stage process that the paper endorses.
"We want an identifiable leadership to come out of this process, a leadership that can become the future leadership of Iraq," said Kanan Makiya, a prominent dissident who was a major author of the paper.
Toward that end, the document assigns a pivotal role in establishing the "transitional authority" to the opposition groups in exile and to the Kurds of northern Iraq. The Kurds are under the protection of an American-imposed no-flight zone.
The core of the "transitional authority," the paper states, should be drawn from those four million Kurds and the three million Iraqis in exile.
The assertion of a lead role for the exiles has been resisted not only by the State Department, but also by some smaller Iraqi groups that fear being marginalized by Ahmad Chalabi, founder of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella group in London. Mr. Chalabi has strong support in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office.
Fawzi al-Shemari, a leader of the Washington-based Iraqi Officers Movement, said he opposed some of the paper's "radical changes" in how Iraq would be governed, as well as designating leaders before an invasion.
"Democracy in and of itself is not our goal," Mr. Shemari said. "It's a way to rebuild Iraq, achieve peace and prosperity and protect civilians."
Mr. Makiya called the resistance to the endorsement of a transitional government a "test between Iraq's old politics, the traditional sects and political parties, versus new politics, the exiles and others who have pressed for democracy and reform now, not later."
The report urges any transition government to approve an amnesty law to assure "stability," and it insists that those "closely connected to the regime must be held accountable for crimes the regime has committed over the years."
The paper bluntly adds that although such a reckoning has widespread support, perhaps through the creation of a "truth and reconciliation commission," intense disagreement exists in the opposition on "where to draw the line of who is to be held accountable."
The document reiterates emphatically that any transitional government should engage neither in vigilantism nor in "collective punishment" of Baath party members, many of whom joined the party simply for professional or personal advancement.
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