The Iraqi opposition meeting in London this week was never going to be a smooth ride, writes Jamal Haidar from London Iraqi opposition groups meeting in London last week concluded their conference on Tuesday, the same day the 10 non- permanent members of the UN Security Council received their sanitised version of Iraq's Weapons Declaration in preparation for today's briefing by senior UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. Postponed repeatedly since September, the conference of the Iraqi opposition convened at the Metropolitan Hilton in London attracted more participants than the preparatory committee had anticipated, and was marred by internal divisions. Three draft documents were discussed by the conference: its final declaration; a strategy for the interim period; and a document on the future of Iraq. By the end of the conference, though, only two documents emerged, one outlining the structures for the interim period, the second outlining the political principles of the Iraqi opposition. The latter incorporated sections of the draft document submitted to the conference on the future of Iraq. The opening session brought together leaders of participating political parties, including Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Al-Sharif Ali Ibn Al-Hussein, of the Constitutional Monarchist Movement and Iyad Alawi, general-secretary of the Iraqi National Accord Movement. Mohamed Baqer Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), did not attend the meeting, though his younger brother, Abdel-Aziz, did. The 10 speeches delivered at the opening session emphasised that regime change was the shared goal of the participants though the priorities of individual speakers differed. The formula "a democratic, pluralistic and federal Iraq" was repeated in every speech though only two speakers managed to point out that it is the Iraqi people who should have the final say in any change. Chalabi, one of several figures who relocated to Washington when the Clinton administration began funding the Iraqi opposition, thanked President Bush for appointing Zalmay Khalilzad -- an Afghan- born American -- as his special envoy, since, Khalilzad is "a Muslim from our environment" and therefore qualified to "help us solve our problems". Under the media spotlight the conference's first day was largely given over to rhetoric. By the second day, though, overt and covert conflicts had emerged, with several high-ranking ex-Baath officers, representatives of the Turkumani Front, Iraqi tribes and Assyrians, as well as independent figures, threatening to withdraw if they did not receive adequate representation on the follow-up and coordination committee. The most glaring aspect of the second day, though, was the discrepancy between the third floor of the hotel, where representatives listened to speeches and discussed documents, and the 14th floor, the real operations room, where the American envoy, Khalilzad, had taken up residence and where the leaders of the various factions had their real meetings. It was on the 14th floor, too, where the senior British Foreign Office official and high-ranking members of the American administration were housed. The conference was extended an extra day to allow for additional discussions on drawing up the committees that will be responsible for administering the country following the fall of the present regime. The independent participants, numbering some 100, held a meeting in which they expressed frustration at the marginalisation of their role. But in the end the two Kurdish parties and the SCIRI scored the biggest successes. They received the largest share of seats on the follow-up committee. The final declaration of the conference adopted the federal solution preferred by the Kurds while the Islamists achieved great success with the acknowledgment that Islam would be the country's official religion and its source of legislation. Following the announcement of the names of committee members (65, which could be enlarged to 75 in the future) five Islamic Shi'ite groups walked out in protest at the dominance of SCIRI. "This is another dictatorship that we reject," said Jamal Al-Wakil, head of the Islamic Accord Movement in Iraq. Sunnis, women and tribal leaders attending the conference also complained that they had been excluded from the decision-making process. Some high-profile participants denied the intention was to form a transitional government or a government in exile, insisting that any government must be formed inside Iraq following the ousting of the current regime. They stressed the importance of national reconciliation and a general amnesty under which no soldier would be punished for following orders. The conference did, however, agree on two lists of Iraqi officials who must be tried in public. One list includes Saddam Hussein and his commanders -- his two sons, his two half-brothers Barzan and Watban, his cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid as well as Tareq Aziz, Mohamed Hamza Al-Zubaidi, Ezzat Al-Duwri and Taha Yasine Ramadan. The second list includes 37 commanders of slightly lower rank. Several parties that boycotted the conference -- the Iraqi Communist Party, the Islamic Da'wa Party, the Socialist Party in Iraq, the Iraqi Democratic Tajammu', the Syria-affiliated Baath Party -- justified their decision by saying that the preparations and agenda for the conference had failed to reflect national interests. Six other political groupings, meanwhile, had submitted a memo to the preparatory committee calling for the conference to be delayed to give time to organise better representation. Outside the hotel groups of fundamentalists, Arab and foreign, denounced the conference and those participating as a façade for facilitating a military attack on Iraq. On the opposite side of the road members of the Iraqi Workers Communist Party expressed the same sentiments. Iraq's official media ignored the London conference. Given the ban on satellite television within Iraq the majority of Iraqis will be ignorant of its proceedings. With a private security company assigned the responsibility of ensuring the safety of delegates, aided by British police and the conference's own security committees, initial estimates of the cost of the conference are put at $500,000.
