Protests Greet U.S.-Led Talks on Iraq
Tue April 15, 2003 09:19 AM ET
By Adrian Croft
TALLIL AIRBASE, Iraq (Reuters) - The United States opened the next phase in reshaping Iraq on Tuesday, gathering fractious political groups to discuss a future government, but boycotts, delays and protests pointed to the hard road ahead.
Participants were flown to a makeshift U.S. air base beside the remains of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur in southern Iraq and met in a big white marquee pitched next to a stepped ziggurat temple.
But in nearby Nassiriya, thousands of Iraqis protested that they did not need American help now Saddam Hussein had gone.
"No to America, No to Saddam," chanted Iraqis from the Shia Muslim majority long oppressed by Saddam, who is from the rival Sunni sect. Arabic television networks said up to 20,000 people marched.
At talks that began after a delay, skepticism ran deep among groups united by little more than joy at Saddam's fall and unease at getting too close to Washington.
Even Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, eager not to be seen as a stooge of the Americans who back him, opted to stay away and send a representative instead.
The main exiled Shi'ite group decided not to come at all.
"We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general," said a spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI.
Retired U.S. general Jay Garner is to head the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) until Iraqis take over, probably in six months to a year.
The U.S. military command under General Tommy Franks looks set to oversee Iraq for longer.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, visiting Qatar, sought to reassure Iraqis that no government would be imposed.
"This is not an American or British operation but one we have sponsored to get things going," he said.
FACTIONS
U.S. officials want Iraqis to form their own decision-making structure ahead of elections, but they said on Tuesday the various leaders would just get acquainted.
Scant news seeped out of the talks.
Establishing a stable government is a daunting task in a divided and now leaderless country. Exiles claim a say, as do those who lived for decades under Saddam's iron rule.
Tribal, ethnic and religious leaders, particularly Shias, have loyal followings.
Stopping the country fragmenting into Kurdish, Shia and Sunni zones will be a tough struggle -- but one that Iraq's neighbors, fearing a reaction among their own minorities, insist on.
The whole process of building peace faces the same dilemma as war did: should the United Nations play a major or minor role, or should the United States call the tune.
The United Nations, promised some sort of role by Washington under pressure from Britain, was attending as an observer.
Britain's Straw said a bigger U.N. role hung on France and Russia now putting aside opposition to the war and cooperating.
"It is the responsibility of all members of the Security Council, but particularly those with vetoes, not to play games but to recognize this new reality and to move forward," he said.
After the United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United Nations oversaw the selection of a government and the administration of the country.
ROLE FOR MEMBERS OF FALLEN LEADERSHIP?
About 60 Iraqis -- radical and mainstream Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, Kurds and supporters of the monarchy axed in 1958 -- were expected to attend the meeting 235 miles southeast of Baghdad.
A spokesman for Chalabi told BBC radio leaders of the Iraqi opposition planned to hold their own meeting in Baghdad soon.
"Iraqis must rule Iraq. We don't need either an American general or a U.N. bureaucrat in charge," said Zaab Sethna.
Garner said ahead of the talks that every day counted and the power vacuum had to be filled. In a country whose former ruling Baath Party controlled everything for decades, coping without its members will be barely possible.
Saddam's police are already back on the streets to help quell days of looting and violence. "The use of the former regime's police ... puts them in the position of sort of starting de-Nazification by rehiring the Gestapo," military analyst Dan Plesch told CNN television.
But Britain's top ORHA official said they were small fry.
"We've been successful in taking the head off the regime, in taking off the top layer," Brigadier General Tim Cross told BBC radio. "Most of the other people who are trying to rebuild their lives will put aside the Baathist regime with great pleasure."
Outside the air base, a few tribal leaders asked to join the talks but were kept outside the barbed wire cordon.
"We need this meeting because we need freedom from Saddam Hussein and we need a new government for Iraq," said one of them, Sheikh Jabar Alowayed.
Story
Tue April 15, 2003 09:19 AM ET
By Adrian Croft
TALLIL AIRBASE, Iraq (Reuters) - The United States opened the next phase in reshaping Iraq on Tuesday, gathering fractious political groups to discuss a future government, but boycotts, delays and protests pointed to the hard road ahead.
Participants were flown to a makeshift U.S. air base beside the remains of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur in southern Iraq and met in a big white marquee pitched next to a stepped ziggurat temple.
But in nearby Nassiriya, thousands of Iraqis protested that they did not need American help now Saddam Hussein had gone.
"No to America, No to Saddam," chanted Iraqis from the Shia Muslim majority long oppressed by Saddam, who is from the rival Sunni sect. Arabic television networks said up to 20,000 people marched.
At talks that began after a delay, skepticism ran deep among groups united by little more than joy at Saddam's fall and unease at getting too close to Washington.
Even Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, eager not to be seen as a stooge of the Americans who back him, opted to stay away and send a representative instead.
The main exiled Shi'ite group decided not to come at all.
"We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general," said a spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI.
Retired U.S. general Jay Garner is to head the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) until Iraqis take over, probably in six months to a year.
The U.S. military command under General Tommy Franks looks set to oversee Iraq for longer.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, visiting Qatar, sought to reassure Iraqis that no government would be imposed.
"This is not an American or British operation but one we have sponsored to get things going," he said.
FACTIONS
U.S. officials want Iraqis to form their own decision-making structure ahead of elections, but they said on Tuesday the various leaders would just get acquainted.
Scant news seeped out of the talks.
Establishing a stable government is a daunting task in a divided and now leaderless country. Exiles claim a say, as do those who lived for decades under Saddam's iron rule.
Tribal, ethnic and religious leaders, particularly Shias, have loyal followings.
Stopping the country fragmenting into Kurdish, Shia and Sunni zones will be a tough struggle -- but one that Iraq's neighbors, fearing a reaction among their own minorities, insist on.
The whole process of building peace faces the same dilemma as war did: should the United Nations play a major or minor role, or should the United States call the tune.
The United Nations, promised some sort of role by Washington under pressure from Britain, was attending as an observer.
Britain's Straw said a bigger U.N. role hung on France and Russia now putting aside opposition to the war and cooperating.
"It is the responsibility of all members of the Security Council, but particularly those with vetoes, not to play games but to recognize this new reality and to move forward," he said.
After the United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United Nations oversaw the selection of a government and the administration of the country.
ROLE FOR MEMBERS OF FALLEN LEADERSHIP?
About 60 Iraqis -- radical and mainstream Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, Kurds and supporters of the monarchy axed in 1958 -- were expected to attend the meeting 235 miles southeast of Baghdad.
A spokesman for Chalabi told BBC radio leaders of the Iraqi opposition planned to hold their own meeting in Baghdad soon.
"Iraqis must rule Iraq. We don't need either an American general or a U.N. bureaucrat in charge," said Zaab Sethna.
Garner said ahead of the talks that every day counted and the power vacuum had to be filled. In a country whose former ruling Baath Party controlled everything for decades, coping without its members will be barely possible.
Saddam's police are already back on the streets to help quell days of looting and violence. "The use of the former regime's police ... puts them in the position of sort of starting de-Nazification by rehiring the Gestapo," military analyst Dan Plesch told CNN television.
But Britain's top ORHA official said they were small fry.
"We've been successful in taking the head off the regime, in taking off the top layer," Brigadier General Tim Cross told BBC radio. "Most of the other people who are trying to rebuild their lives will put aside the Baathist regime with great pleasure."
Outside the air base, a few tribal leaders asked to join the talks but were kept outside the barbed wire cordon.
"We need this meeting because we need freedom from Saddam Hussein and we need a new government for Iraq," said one of them, Sheikh Jabar Alowayed.
Story
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