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No polls, but Iraq gets sovereignty - and
troops
By Robert McMahon
NEW
YORK - Iraq will not get its elections in June as
planned by the United States. Sovereignty, though, will
still be handed over to Iraqis, but US-led troops will
remain in the country.
"So, the major change
that happens on June 30 is that the Coalition
[Provisional] Authority passes sovereignty back to the
Iraqi government, the occupation ends, and coalition
forces are no longer occupying forces," chief US
administrator in Iraq, L Paul Bremer, said on Thursday.
"They [US troops] are in partnership with the Iraqi
people to protect Iraqi security."
Bremer added
that regardless of how an Iraqi government is ultimately
chosen, coalition forces will remain in place until
Iraqi security forces are ready to protect their country
by themselves.
Bremer was speaking after United
Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said on Thursday
that it was not feasible to hold elections in Iraq
before the US transfers power to Iraqis on June 30, the
date set by a UN resolution following the toppling of
Saddam Hussein's regime last year.
Annan said
after a meeting of UN diplomats that the June 30
handover timeline should be respected: "We shared with
them our sense of the emerging consensus or
understanding that elections cannot be held before the
end of June, that the June 30 date for handover of
sovereignty must be respected, and that we need to find
a mechanism to create a caretaker government and then
help prepare the elections some time later in the
future."
He also said that the UN was preparing
recommendations about how to establish an interim Iraqi
government - basically a caretaker administration -
before elections can be held.
Annan's comments
come after he met with his senior envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar
Brahimi, and representatives of 46 states interested in
Iraq's reconstruction.
Annan stressed that his
recommendations on direct elections and the power
transfer reflect the feelings of a range of Iraqi groups
that met with Brahimi last week. The secretary general
told the meeting that he will recommend a transitional
governing mechanism that enjoys the broadest support of
Iraqi groups.
Brahimi told reporters that the UN
is willing to play a guiding role throughout the
process. "The United Nations will be resuming its work
to help the political process, first of all, up to the
30th of June and then after the 30th of June when
sovereignty will be restored in Iraq."
US
officials asked the UN to come up with proposals for
Iraq's political future after Shi'ite leaders such as
Grand Ayotollah Ali al-Sistani rejected original US
plans for a series of regional caucuses.
Annan
stressed that the UN must retain a clear, separate
identity and be seen by the Iraqi people as independent.
Bremer also said the Iraqi constitution should
acknowledge the Islamic nature of Iraq, but stressed
that it not be based solely on sharia, or Islamic law.
Instead, he said it should be founded on secular
principles that guarantee rights recognized in liberal
democracies.
"We said we seek a representative
and sovereign Iraqi government. That government should
be bound by a transitional administrative law that
protects fundamental rights and provides a stable
political structure. Under that law, Iraqis will enjoy
freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the freedom
of religious belief and practice," he said.
UN
diplomats say that Brahimi favors a relatively short
period between the handover of power and elections, with
nationwide balloting possibly late this year.
Asia Times Online reports that serious political
horse-trading is now likely to begin: already many of
the 25 US-appointed members of Iraq's Governing Council
have begun making bids to assume sovereignty from the
Coalition Provisional Authority.
Other
stakeholders, including Sistani and the country's
Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population,
Sunnis, long accustomed to power, and Kurds, hankering
after self-rule in the north, will certainly also have
something to say.
The US, the UN and Iraqi
leaders have just four months to work out how all these
groups can be accommodated into an administration which
Iraqis will feel deserving of receiving the gift of
"sovereignty".
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL
Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
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