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Iraqis Debate Postwar Future on Saddam Birthday
« on: Apr 28th, 2003, 8:56am » |
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Iraqis Debate Postwar Future on Saddam Birthday
By Nadim Ladki
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - About 250 leading Iraqis from across the political and ethnic spectrum held a watershed meeting on Monday, convened by the United States to work out how to replace Saddam Hussein's iron rule with democracy.
U.S. reconstruction chief Jay Garner opened the Baghdad meeting on Saddam's 66th birthday -- until this year a public holiday -- telling participants they bore a heavy responsibility to launch a new era for their war-ravaged country.
"Today on the birthday of Saddam Hussein let us start the democratic process for the children of Iraq (news - web sites)," Garner told delegates at a heavily guarded convention center in the bombed-out heart of the capital's government district.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who ran the three-week war that ousted Saddam, congratulated his top field commanders during a tour of the region and mocked critics who had attacked the war plan in the early stages of the invasion.
"There were a lot of hand-wringers around, weren't there?" he told troops in Qatar, military headquarters for the war. "Never have so many been so wrong about so much."
Despite the quick removal of Saddam, U.S. troops have failed to find chemical or biological weapons -- Washington's main rationale for the invasion -- and they are facing growing demands to quit the country and make way for Iraqi rule.
Delegates at the Baghdad meeting told Garner, who promised Iraq on Sunday that the Americans would leave as quickly as possible, that they were grateful to Washington for removing Saddam but now wanted to run their own affairs.
Those attending included clerics from the Shi'ite majority and from the traditionally dominant Sunni Muslims, as well as Kurds from the northern mountains. Arab tribal chiefs in robes and headdresses mixed with urban professionals in Western-style suits.
Britain, the main U.S. ally in the war, was represented at the meeting by Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien, who told reporters he envisaged a process that would include a referendum on a new constitution.
CHALABI WHEREABOUTS NOT CLEAR
It was not immediately clear if pro-American Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress umbrella group, would accept his invitation to take part in the Baghdad talks.
The main Shi'ite Muslim group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), sent representatives to the meeting after boycotting a similar but much smaller gathering in Nassiriya on April 15.
But several hundred demonstrators staged a rally in the capital to protest that Shi'ite leaders from the holy city of Najaf were not adequately represented at the talks.
A few of the demonstrators carried banners in support of Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, the former exile who declared himself mayor of Baghdad but was arrested by U.S. forces on Sunday.
A U.S. statement said Zubaidi had been detained because of "subversive" activities that included telling people they could not return to work without his approval.
His "efforts to take political and personal advantage during this transitional period ... made it necessary for coalition forces to act decisively against him," it said.
Rumsfeld, on the second day of a Gulf tour, told U.S. troops in Qatar that the war provided rich lessons for military historians. "They will examine the unprecedented combination of power, precision, speed, flexibility -- and I would add also compassion -- that was employed," he said.
Rumsfeld is discussing with Gulf leaders a possible reduction in Washington's costly military presence in the region now that the perceived threat posed by Saddam has been removed.
U.S. TO REDUCE PRESENCE IN SAUDI ARABIA?
The New York Times reported the U.S. military was transferring its major Middle East air operations center from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. Citing senior military officials, it said the shift hearalded what was likely to be a significant cut in American forces in Saudi Arabia.
A U.S. defense official, citing security concerns, would not say if Rumsfeld would visit Iraq during his Gulf tour.
Garner plans to oversee the immediate reconstruction of Iraq then hand over to an interim government before a democratic election. He hopes the process of forming a government will start by the weekend.
World Bank chief James Wolfensohn estimated the international community would have to raise $2 to $3 billion a year to rebuild Iraq.
In an interview with the French business daily La Tribune, he said reconstruction should not be a major problem but its pace would depend on how much of Iraq's oil revenues were devoted to rebuilding the country. The U.S. military reported on Sunday it had detained Gen. Hussam Mohammad Amin, a key figure in negotiations with the U.N. inspectors who hunted banned Iraqi weapons before the war.
Amin, No. 49 on a U.S. list of 55 most-wanted members of Saddam's entourage, is the 13th known to be in custody. A U.S. military source said he was caught west of Baghdad.
U.S. television networks reported over the weekend that initial tests on a 55-gallon barrel of chemicals found by U.S. forces northwest of Baghdad had detected nerve and blistering agents.
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