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1) US 'wants Iraq council scrapped'
2) 'Shambolic' Iraqi council forcing US to think again
3) US tiring of Iraq council - report
4) Ineffective Iraqi council angers its US backers
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1)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3256005.stm
Monday, 10 November, 2003, 01:33 GMT
US 'wants Iraq council scrapped'
By David Bamford
BBC correspondent in Washington
Reports from the United States suggest the Bush administration has
become so frustrated with the Iraqi Governing Council, it may be looking to
scrap it.
The Iraqi Governing Council's days may be numbered
The Washington Post newspaper quotes a senior US official as saying
the administration has become alarmed at the IGC's failure to make important
decisions.
According to the paper, the US is actively looking for an alternative
strategy.
It has reportedly become frustrated by individual members on the
US-appointed council who, officials say, spend all their time promoting
private agendas rather than making important collective decisions.
'Potential to govern'
But Richard Perle, a right-wing Pentagon adviser, said in a TV
interview he would be recommending against making changes.
"The Iraqi Governing Council consists of people who represent large
elements of the Iraqi society," he said.
"If we're impatient, we shouldn't be because they have the potential
to govern the country and govern it effectively."
Although the council does include figures from each of Iraq's Sunni,
Shia and Kurdish groups, its members were handpicked by the Americans and
there have been doubts about whether some represent anyone but themselves.
New look
The council was set up soon after Baghdad was taken, when many in the
US assumed the transition to an elected government would be a matter of
months.
Now it is acknowledged by all sides this is untenable.
Some like Senator Joe Biden think a fresh look now would provide a
further chance of improved international co-operation.
"I'd use that as the entree with the French to say we can work out an
arrangement here," he said.
One possibility being reconsidered, according to quoted US officials,
is that of an interim sovereign body as in Afghanistan - a model that the
French have been advocating in Iraq for some time.
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2)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1081610,00.html
'Shambolic' Iraqi council forcing US to think again
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday November 10, 2003
The Guardian
The Iraqi governing council, set up by the US as a step towards self-rule,
has proved be so ineffective and shambolic that Washington is beginning to
consider alternatives, it was reported yesterday.
Frustration with the council has been building for some time within the Bush
administration, which selected the panel of Iraqi politicians in July and
gave it until December 15 to come up with a plan for drawing up a
constitution and holding elections.
But progress has been minimal as only a handful of council members have been
turning up regularly for meetings, and there has been little oversight of
the new Iraqi cabinet ministers, who are supposed to be the council's
responsibility.
"It has not been a coherent council. Members are not aware of legislation
passed in their names," said Laith Kubba, the president of the Iraqi
National Group, a liberal democratic organisation that is not part of the
council. "They are not aware of what ministers are doing. Although the
council is made up of 25 members, there are only five main players and the
rest are there in a very ineffective way."
The Washington Post yesterday quoted US and French officials as saying that
the administration was even considering the idea put forward by Paris and
other UN security council members for an interim Iraqi leadership chosen by
national conference - along the lines of the loya jirga held in Afghanistan.
If such a system were chosen, the US would reverse the order of the
transition, handing sovereignty to the provisional government before a
constitution was written and an election held.
This suggestion had been rejected by Washington, but it is beginning to look
more inviting as the US death toll rises amid the clashes in Iraq, and there
is now a greater urgency to withdraw US forces in time for next November's
presidential elections.
"If our exit is going to take longer, if it looks like it could go more than
two years to get it all done, then there's an incentive to look into a
transitional phase and some other governing mechanism," a state department
official said.
Mr Kubba suggested that the leaks to the Washington Post were more likely
meant to focus the minds of the council than to be a concrete plan of
action.
"The frustration has been there for some time so I am not surprised by it,"
Mr Kubba said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I would be surprised if
they tried to complicate their difficult situation at the moment by
upsetting the governing council."
Robert Blackwill, an official from the national security council, who was
given the job of coordinating the political transition, is reported to have
begun an unannounced visit to Iraq at the weekend, reportedly to try to put
pressure on the council members and discuss alternatives with the head of
the occupation authority, Paul Bremer.
The Iraqi governing council was intended to represent Iraq's ethnic
diversity, and includes Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and a representative of the
Turkoman community. It included three women, but one, Aqila al-Hashimi, was
assassinated in September.
Most of the prominent Sunnis on the council are former exiles, and Mr Kubba
said the council should be expanded to include more representatives from the
provinces and the main Sunni tribes, which he said had been marginalised by
the occupation authorities.
Those groups would have to be convinced that they would wield real - rather
than symbolic - power.
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3)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8E30FECC-80DC-4079-AF7B-AD6C4953CDB1.htm
US tiring of Iraq council - report
Sunday 09 November 2003, 14:49 Makka Time, 11:49 GMT
The Bush administration is losing patience with the self-interest and
sluggishness of Iraq's Governing Council and is considering finding an
alternative, a paper reported on Sunday.
US officials think members of the US-appointed IGC, under interim president
Jalal Talabani, are too focused on their own interests and moving too slowly
to draft a new constitution - a US prerequisite for a power handover - the
Washington Post said, citing senior US officials.
"We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting as a legislative or
governing body, and we need to get moving," a US official quoted by the
paper said.
The Post said Robert Blackwill, an official on the White House National
Security Council overseeing Iraq's political transition, was embarking on an
unannounced trip to Iraq this weekend to underscore US concerns.
Blackwill would discuss possible alternatives with Paul Bremer, the US
administrator in Iraq.
A spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, which has so
far tried to boost the credibility of the council, refused to comment on the
report when contacted by Aljazeera.net.
Pressure
The United States is under international pressure to transfer power to
Iraqis as soon as possible, as it searches for ways to stabilise the nation
and bring its troops home.
US and French officials said the United States was considering a French
proposal, rejected earlier, to create an interim Iraqi leadership similar to
the government formed in postwar Afghanistan, according to the paper.
"The council is trying its best. You have to remember we are 24
personalities. We have never worked together. There is no precedent for what
we are doing"
Muwafaq Rabiyi,
Iraqi Governing Council member
Officials quoted by the paper indicated, however, that the United States was
still focused on working with the council in an effort to meet a 15 December
deadline set by the United Nations for laying out a timetable and programme
for drafting a constitution and holding elections.
"There's no sword yet over their heads," one official told the paper.
Still, the paper also said US officials were exploring the possibility of
creating a provisional authority to govern until a new constitution was
written and elections held, which would mark a departure from Washington's
position that a new constitution was needed before power would be turned
over.
"If our exit is going to take longer, if it looks like it could go more than
two years to get it all done, then there's an incentive to look into a
transitional phase and some other governing mechanism," the paper quoted a
US State Department official as saying.
Patience required
Adil Abd al-Mahdi, a council member from the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, told the paper that the US would have to be patient.
"Figuring out how to write the constitution is the most important thing we
will do. We have to make sure we take the time to do this right," he said.
Another council member said that the council was breaking new ground.
"The council is trying its best. You have to remember we are 24
personalities," said Muwafaq Rabiyi, a Shia physician and former exile in
Britain. "We have never worked together. There is no precedent for what we
are doing."
Reuters
---------------
4)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/09/1068329422664.html
Ineffective Iraqi council angers its US backers
By Robin Wright in Washington,Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad
November 10, 2003
Increasingly alarmed by the failure of the Iraqi Governing Council to take
decisive action, the Bush Administration is developing possible alternatives
to the council to ensure that the US can turn over political power at the
same time as troops are withdrawn.
Officials say the US is frustrated by its hand-picked council members, who
they say have spent more time on their own political or economic interests
than in planning Iraq's political future, especially selecting a committee
to write a new constitution.
"We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting as a legislative or
governing body, and we need to get moving," one well-placed US official
said. "They just don't make decisions when they need to."
Robert Blackwill, the new US National Security Council official overseeing
Iraq's political transition, began an unannounced trip to Iraq at the
weekend to meet local politicians to drive home that point. He is also
discussing options with the American administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer.
The US is even considering a French proposal, earlier rejected, to create an
interim Iraqi leadership that would emulate the Afghan model, where
President Hamid Karzai has governed while a new national charter is being
developed. France and other Security Council members had proposed holding a
national conference to select a provisional government that would have the
rights of sovereignty.
The US has insisted that a new constitution was the essential first step and
elections the final phase in handing over power. But the Administration is
now considering changing the order of the transition if it appears to be
taking much longer than planned.
"If our exit is going to take . . . more than two years . . . then there's
an incentive to look into a transitional phase and some other governing
mechanism," a State Department official said.
The shift comes after repeated warnings to the governing council. Two weeks
ago, Mr Bremer met council members and bluntly told them they could not go
on as they were, a US official in Baghdad said. Mr Bremer complained that at
least half the council is out of the country at any given time and only
about four members show up at some meetings.
Since the council appointed 25 cabinet ministers in late August, the body
has done "nothing of substance", the official added.
The US, which financially and politically backed several of the council
members in exile, has also been disillusioned by the council's inability to
communicate with the Iraqi public or gain greater legitimacy. As a result,
the council has less credibility now than it did when it was appointed,
further undermining Iraq's stability.
US officials are still hoping that it can "stay the course, only faster",
the official said.
Iraqi council members counter that they should be given the powers of a
provisional government - with rights of sovereignty - because they have no
real powers to act as long as the Coalition Provisional Authority occupies
and rules Iraq. A council member said that the US has an "unrealistic idea"
that difficult issues can be sorted in a day or two.
The Washington Post
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