America to run Iraq as squabbling parties fail to agree strategy by Julian Borger Washington, Michael Howard and 11:20am Fri Feb 21 '03 The Bush administration is on a collision course with its closest allies in the Iraqi opposition over how the country should be run after the fall of Saddam Hussein, compounding the confusion now surrounding Washington's preparations for war. Guardian interviews with four of the seven leading opposition figures have revealed the depth of the rift between Washington and several of the main parties claiming to represent the Iraqi people. print article The split has overshadowed a much-delayed meeting in Irbil, northern Iraq, now slated for this weekend, which will bring together opposition leaders who have spent much of the past decade at loggerheads. It is hoped that the meeting will forge unity between the disparate groups. But their temporary reconciliation has come too late for the United States, which has given up hope of unifying the Iraqi exiles, and opted to run the country itself in the aftermath of the war. The Bush administration told opposition leaders at a meeting in Ankara earlier this month that it plans to install a transitional military governor and keep much of the existing Iraqi bureaucracy in place. The proposals have opened such a deep gulf between the US and its traditional allies in the Iraqi opposition - particularly the Iraqi National Council headed by Ahmad Chalabi - that a leading INC member has even raised the possibility of a revolt against the American occupation troops after the war is over. The rift has also added to the uncertainty dogging US war plans, already on hold in the absence of an agreement from Turkey to provide bases for a northern front, and in the face of determined opposition in the UN security council. Mr Chalabi is seeking to declare a provisional government when the war starts. The Chalabi plan, which has been seen by the Guardian, envisages the establishment of a leadership council, drawn from the 65 members of a steering committee appointed at an opposition conference in London in December. At the onset of a US invasion, this new body would become "a leadership council of the transitional government of Iraq", which would oversee the preparation of a temporary constitution and assign an executive committee head to create the first post-Saddam cabinet. The plan lists the various ministries that would be created but fails to tackle the thorny issue of representation for the country's different ethnic and religious groups. The plan has alienated some of Mr Chalabi's most enthusiastic backers in the Pentagon and in Congress, who fear the announcement of a provisional government made up of exiles would split anti-Saddam sentiment inside Iraq. "People in this administration tried very hard to put the [INC-led] opposition into power," said Leith Kubba, a founder member of the INC who is now non-affiliated. "But after a total investment of $100m, they are saying look at the money spent and ask what do we have to work with? Is there a coherent front? The answer is no." Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House "special envoy and ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis", only agreed to attend this weekend's rebel congress after its Kurdish hosts guaranteed there would be no declaration of a provisional government. "The Americans are coming," Hoshyar Zebari, of the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP), said, suggesting a deal has been done. The Kurds were ambivalent over the INC's plan, seeing the provisional government as a vehicle for Mr Chalabi's ambitions. "The trouble is it's all about Ahmad [Chalabi]," said one Kurdish official. "Who else do you think he has in mind for the head of the executive committee. He knows that if he enters Baghdad without this kind of deal, he'll not have the leverage he craves. There will be so many other exiled Iraqi technocrats returning that he'll just be one of the crowd." Mr Khalilzad's arrival in Irbil has been postponed several times, apparently due to bad weather in Washington, but if and when he finally turns up he is likely to be given a cool reception. The INC is furious with him. The Kurds are anxious over reports that the US has promised Turkey that its troops will have free run in northern Iraq once the war starts. And all sides suspect him of trying to undermine their clout by persuading other opposition leaders, including Ayad Alawi of the Iraqi National Accord, and Sharif Ali, the most prominent monarchist, not to attend. The Guardian has learned that Mr Khalilzad is trying to arrange a rival meeting with 15 Iraqi opposition figures and exiles. Mr Chalabi has so far not been invited, but the meeting is expected to include independents like Adnan Pachachi, an 80-year-old former Iraqi foreign minister now living in Abu Dhabi. Mr Khalilzad has recently been courting Mr Pachachi as a possible elder statesman to add legitimacy to the "advisory council" the US is hoping to set up as a complement to the post-war military administration. The day-to-day government would be left in the hands of the existing bureaucracy, made up of low-level Ba'ath party members. The meeting in Irbil at least appears to have cemented the truce between the two rival Kurdish groups, the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which spent half the past decade at war with each other. Both have repeated their commitment not to attempt to secede, but to respect the integrity of a federal Iraq. Jalal Talabani, the PUK leader, pledged his party would play a role in a post-war central government, telling The Guardian "I think it is the duty of Kurds to play an important role in Baghdad for reshaping Iraq into a democratic, pluralist system." The main Shi'ite movement, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has forged a temporary alliance with the PUK, and is attending the Irbil meeting but the Kurdish-Shi'ite axis is tenuous over the issue of federalism. Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim, the SCIRI leader, said he is not prepared to accept a federal post-war Iraq. "Kurds want this kind of configuration but this matter should be left to Iraqis," he said. - REUTERS : Iraqi exile warns against US occupation 20.02.2003 4.30 pm Iraq's main opposition group has warned the United Nations and the United States against trying to govern Iraq even temporarily in the event that President Saddam Hussein is overthrown. Ahmad Chalabi, the best known leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), wrote in The Daily Telegraph newspaper on Thursday that "there must be no gap in the sovereignty over Iraq by Iraqis". Chalabi, sidelined by US plans for a long military occupation of Iraq, said he hoped for democracy in Iraq. "We reject notions of foreign military government or United Nations administration for Iraq," he wrote. "Iraqis are fiercely independent, and at the same time are perfectly capable of governing Iraq." Earlier this month, US officials laid out plans for a two-year military occupation of Iraq, adding that "enormous uncertainties" made it impossible to say whether troops might stay even longer. The letter from Chalabi, who fled to the north of Iraq following a failed uprising in 1995, follows one to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday in which he described US plans for interim rule as a "recipe for disaster". Despite backing from Pentagon hawks, the former banker is viewed with suspicion by the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House. Chalabi's INC was set up in the early 1990s to include all opposition groups, but the pro-Western former banker fell out with Kurdish and Islamist opposition chiefs who accused him of seeking power while having no support inside Iraq. Chalabi mentioned the need for "de-Ba'athification" -- purging the government of former Saddam supporters -- and said there were many Iraqis ready to take their place who were not "tainted by serving the dictatorship". "Our first and most urgent task is to create a system which can restore self respect to the Iraqi people," he wrote. "The only way this can be done is through the establishment of a democratic government founded upon the rule of law." He said a new constitution would deliver "iron-clad guarantees of equal civil, political and human rights for all citizens." http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3147368&thesection=news&thesubsection=world www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,899... add your comments Source file

Exiled leader attacks US plan by Luke Harding in Irbil, northern Iraq 11:28am Fri Feb 21 '03 print comment Friday February 21, 2003 The Guardian The Bush administration's plans to impose a US military governor in Iraq who would leave the infrastructure of Saddam Hussein's bureaucracy largely intact has been dismissed as unworkable by one of the key figures in the Iraqi opposition. Dr Ahmad Chalabi, the 58-year-old chairman of Iraq's main opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), ridiculed the idea. "Their vision is of US military officers three deep in every ministry. It isn't workable," he said. Dr Chalabi, the best known member of Iraq's exiled opposition, has spent 30 years in exile - he lives in London with his wife and four children - and has made several disastrous attempts to depose Saddam. He founded the anti-Saddam INC in 1992. Instead of a US military governor, the INC wants a transitional government made up of Iraqis to take over, working in tandem with the US military, to rebuild the country. The INC's vision is of a democratic Iraq in which Iraq's Shia majority and downtrodden Kurds are, for the first time, fairly represented. Relations between Washington and the INC have always been stormy. The CIA bankrolled the organisation at its inception, but then fell out with it in 1995 when the INC, together with Kurdish troops, launched a doomed offensive from the opposition-controlled north into Iraqi government territory. In 2000 the US state department renewed funding to the INC - Iraq watchers estimate the INC has received about $100m (£65m) in funding from the US over the past 10 years. Recently the money has dried up. Dr Chalabi's critics accuse him of sleaze, an accusation he denies. The scion of one of Baghdad's wealthiest families, Dr Chalabi took a PhD at the University of Chicago and later became the chairman of the Petr bank in Jordan. The bank collapsed and he was convicted in his absence of multimillion dollar fraud. www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,899... add your comments

Bank freezes guerrilla group's assets by Richard Adams 11:35am Fri Feb 21 '03 print comment Friday February 21, 2003 The Guardian The Bank of England yesterday ordered British financial institutions to freeze assets belonging to Ansar al-Islam, a guerrilla group operating in northern Iraq. The Bank's move, on the advice of the Treasury, was against the group recently named by US secretary of state Colin Powell as harbouring al-Qaida fugitives fleeing Afghanistan, and possibly possessing chemical weapons such as ricin. The Bank's announcement came as John Snow, the US treasury secretary, met Gordon Brown in London, to discuss terrorism financing and the economic impact of the conflict with Iraq. "The whole Iraqi situation is having a decided negative effect on economic activity," said Mr Snow after the meeting at No 11 Downing Street. Mr Snow was en route to today's meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations in Paris. The Treasury said the decision to freeze the assets of Ansar al-Islam was evidence of its "continued determination to work closely with the US and other countries" to cut off funds to terrorist organisations. "The Treasury have reasonable grounds for suspecting that Ansar al-Islam ... commits, attempts to commit, facilitates or participates in the commission of acts of terrorism," the Bank said. British banks and financial houses were advised to check their records and freeze any accounts belonging to Ansar al-Islam - also known as AI, Devotees of Islam or Soldiers of Islam. The group is said to control several villages in Kurdish-held territory in Iraq. Ansar al-Islam's leader, Mullah Krekar, denies any links between his group and Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein. This week Norway said it would expel Mullah Krekar because it believed his group was linked to al-Qaida. www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,899... add your comments