"Iraqification" may be Washington's PR pitch for ending its occupation of Iraq, but who are the Iraqis the Americans have in mind? Salah Hemeid reports Frustrated with the inability of Iraq's Interim Governing Council (IGC) to act decisively towards solving the country's mounting troubles, the Bush administration is working on alternatives to ensure the turnover of political power at a pace cognizant with the withdrawal of US troops. Though the latter is off the agenda at present, it seems increasingly likely that as US presidential elections approach, demands will be made to bring the boys home. The Washington Post quoted this week unnamed US officials in Washington and in Baghdad as saying the United States is deeply frustrated with its hand-picked council members, who it sees as having spent more time on their own political or economic agendas than in planning for Iraq's political future -- especially with regard to the urgent task of selecting a committee to author a new constitution. Among other deficiencies, officials charged that the 25 member council has done "nothing of substance" since it was formed in August; 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 have shown up. As further evidence of its ineptness, the body, according to officials, has been seriously remiss in overseeing its own ministers, holding public hearings, setting policy for cabinet departments, communicating with cabinet members, and even in its communications with the Iraqi public and 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 its legitimacy and Iraq's political stability. The Post reported that Washington is sending Ambassador Robert Blackwill, the new National Security Council official overseeing Iraq's political transition, to Baghdad this weekend to meet with Iraqi politicians to drive the point home. On Tuesday L Paul Bremer, the chief civilian administrator in Iraq, was summoned unexpectedly from Baghdad to a White House meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other key officials. Press reports suggest that President George W Bush's national security advisers questioned him about how to break the logjam in Baghdad and speed up the planning of the nation's political future. According to The Post's report, among proposals under consideration is the formation of an interim Iraqi leadership that would emulate the Afghan loya jirga (grand council), and the additional selection of a provisional government that would hold interim rights of sovereignty. However, the Bush administration, which financially and politically backed several of the council members when they were in exile, does not yet seem at the point of abandoning its creation. Bremer is reportedly intensifying his work with the IGC ahead of the 15 December deadline established in UN Resolution 1511, which calls for the council to set a timetable for the drafting of a new constitution and for the holding of democratic elections under that constitution. But with more American soldiers killed every week in Iraq, and time rapidly slipping away, the administration is preparing emergency options in the event that the Iraqi body does not come up with a constitutional convention or meet the UN deadline. These options seem centered around what is increasingly called "Iraqification" -- speeding up the timetable for transferring power to Iraqis. But which Iraqis? Not surprisingly many council members seemed confused and defensive about the accusations of their ineptness. In an interview Tuesday with the London- based Asharq Al-Awssat Kurdish leader and IGC member Masoud Barzani acknowledged that "the council has a lot of shortcomings". Yet he said there was no "better formula for now". His colleague and current IGC Chairman Jalal Talabani told the Arab television network Al- Arabiya on the same day that the council wants to formulate a 200-250 member assembly from different social and political sectors that would work as a consultative body. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, IGC member Mowaffak Al-Rubaie, a moderate Shi'ite, welcomed attempts to expand the council to bring in more members, although he insisted that any enlargement should be based on proportional sharing which would give Shi'ites, who represent 60 per cent of the population, a larger showing appropriate to their number. "This is a guarantee for stability and against any possible comeback of the dictatorship or domination by the minority," he said in a telephone interview, referring to Sunni monopoly of power during the years of Saddam Hussein's regime. With a mounting guerrilla war being waged in Sunni areas, the Bush administration seems keen to rectify a major error it committed when Sunnis felt sidelined by the new formula introduced by the American occupiers. By bringing more Sunnis into a new body, the administration is trying to avoid a worse debacle awaiting coalition forces in the Sunni heartland where the resistance to occupation finds its centre. An expanded council is also expected to bring more local activists and more independent and secular-minded people to counterbalance the influence of Islamic-oriented factions and former exiles who currently form the backbone of the council's power base. This new strategy has less to do with Iraqi democracy than American democracy. In a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation Tuesday, Bush urged Americans to be patient in the face of rising casualties and growing criticism that the US lacks a strategy for post-war Iraq. Heading into an election year, Bush also has his own domestic political considerations. He wants to show, in time for re-election, that Iraqis are running their own affairs and US soldiers are coming home. But a quick transfer of power could be an even riskier gamble. Iraq has gone from three decades of totalitarianism to total collapse. A quick transfer of authority to a weak central government, many argue, would lead to chaos, encouraging competing groups to retain de facto autonomy in their regions.
