Opposition Squabbles

20 December 2002

The US wanted the recent London gathering of Iraqi exiles to be a media event — and that’s exactly what it was. The haggling among the 350-plus opposition members at the four-day meeting, not to mention the outcome, showed the wisdom of Washington’s insistence that all fundamental issues related to a new political system in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq be avoided.

The US had urged the attendees, who represented several dozen opposition groups and movements in exile, to put on a “show of unity.” They complied by issuing a political statement defining a common stance, and agreed on general principles for a transition period — defined as the “period between the establishment of a coalition authority as a result of the fall of the regime and the holding of elections.”

But rather than elect a coordinating committee with six to nine members to act as the main channel for talks with the US and others, the political wheeling and dealing resulted in an unworkable 65-member committee. US officials’ assertion that the committee, and the opposition as a whole, would only play a “consultative” role in the regime-change process couldn’t stop the arguments.

Surprisingly for a country that holds the second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, oil was absent from the debates. The political statement included two lines asserting that Iraq “should be allowed to maximize its oil production during the transition period” and calling for the “re-examination by the new regime of the legality of all contracts signed after 1990.”

Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), told a post-gathering press conference that: “No one in the opposition can commit Iraq to any contract with a foreign body, be it a state or an oil company, except the new Iraqi government which will emerge after liberation. All contracts signed by Saddam Hussein under [UN] sanctions are illegal by international law since he had no right to sign contracts while the country was under sanctions.” According to him, any future contracts should first and foremost take Iraq’s interests into consideration.

Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the major groups at the meeting, went even further, declaring: “We will not support any company that signed with a dictator. We will even use our vote in parliament against those companies that signed contracts with the Iraqi dictatorship.”

Although the conference was largely sponsored by the US — with officials from the Pentagon, State Department, White House and Vice President’s office roaming the corridors — the opposition was united in rejecting “all forms of occupation or military rule, both foreign and local,” in a post-Saddam Iraq.

The statement was essentially designed to counter accusations that the opposition is acting as a US patsy. But it was similar to recommendations made this week by two US think tanks, the Baker Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. Intended as an “intellectual road map,” their guiding principles for post-conflict policy were that the US “should play a supporting, not a leading role” by appointing a “coordinator for Iraq,” and should let the Iraqi people choose their own government and decide their own oil policy.

The opposition agreed that a new regime should be “democratic, pluralist and federal,” but avoided anything more detailed to deter more squabbling among the ethnic and national groups. During the transition period, they agreed there should be a sovereign council of three leaders, while a transitional national assembly would be responsible for legislation and overseeing the executive. A popular referendum would be held to decide whether Iraq should be republican or monarchist.

Aside from a small Kuwaiti delegation, Arab representatives were largely absent from the meeting. It was non-Arab Iran that made its presence felt, both through its backing for the large Shia Muslim group represented by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and by sending its own delegates. Courted by the US, which wants to neutralize it both before and after the possible war, Tehran has played along, encouraging SCIRI leaders to attend an Iraqi opposition meeting in Washington in August, and hosting a Kurdish Shia meeting ahead of the London conference.

Represented by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the brother of SCIRI’s Tehran-based leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia group dominated proceedings. The final statement included the historic declaration that the Shia constitute the majority of the Iraqi population, while the transition period declaration averred that Islam is the state religion. Moreover, SCIRI won itself the largest representation on the coordinating committee.

But keeping Washington at arm’s length, Al-Hakim said SCIRI has refused US money, military training, and weapons. “We have our own military forces, and we are capable of training and arming them,” he said, referring to SCIRI’s Badr Brigades, which have been trained by the Iranians.

Equally influential were the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which together represent 3 million Kurds living in autonomous areas of northern Iraq protected by the US no-fly zone. The Kurds saw their insistence that federalism be adopted as the basis of a new Iraq endorsed in the final statement, which also recognized their “legitimate aspirations” and their right to self-determination. The Kurds hope to set up an independent state in northern Iraq with oil-rich Kirkuk as the capital.

Pulling the strings behind the scenes was Zalmay Khalilzad, President George W. Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan, and the newly appointed special envoy and ambassador at large for Free Iraqis. A Pashtun, who has worked with several US officials since the 1980s, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, Khalilzad held court in his hotel suite throughout the meeting — in much the same way he acted as a mentor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai — ensuring the Iraqi opposition kept to the limits set by Washington.

By Ruba Husari, London

(Published in Energy Compass, 20 December 2002)

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