28 November 2002
After several delays — and a huge amount of infighting — key Iraqi dissidents in exile are finally set to meet in London on Dec. 10 with the goal of establishing a common stand over the shape of an Iraq without Saddam Hussein. Signs aren’t hopeful. The meeting, called by the US administration, is expected to discuss issues ranging from the establishment of a government in exile through whether Iraq should be a federal state to the role of opposition movements in any US-led attempts at regime change. They all look divisive.
The conference was originally scheduled for Brussels last month. But the venue was switched after the Belgians said they didn’t want to host a conference discussing regime change while they support UN efforts to disarm Iraq and thus avoid a war.
The date was put back several times because of disagreement about the number of people who should attend. The preparatory committee charged with organizing the meeting was split over a demand from Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), that 600 people should be invited, rather than the 260 originally envisaged, and that the conference should elect a government in exile. The other four groups on the committee — representing the Popular Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Shia Muslim Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is based in Tehran, and the Iraq National Accord — baulked. All suspected Chalabi of wanting to invite his supporters so they could back him as head of a government in exile, which he envisages returning to Baghdad along with US troops. Instead, they wanted the conference to recognize political autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq and Shias in the south, and adopt a declaration of principles calling for a federal state post-Saddam.
The Americans thought differently. Following meetings in London in mid-November, a team of five senior US officials representing the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council told the five committee members they had to hold the conference by Dec. 15, and issued them with a set of principles reflecting US expectations. The committee agreed to raise the number of participants to 300.
The principles include refraining from declaring a government or parliament in exile, and electing a consultative group representing the various factions to act as a link between the US and the broader opposition. The US did not mention federation, but said the conference should unconditionally support the unity and sovereignty of Iraq. It also made it clear it wanted the meeting to showcase the opposition’s emerging sense of unity, and underline the Iraqi people’s desire for democracy and freedom.
On the face of it, the US centers of power sounded more united than the fractious Iraqi opposition. In reality, there is no more consensus within the US on who should lead the “new Iraq” than there is among the exiles. The State Department, plus National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to a certain extent, and several Iraqi opposition groups want the future leadership to come from within. They believe this would have more credibility and ensure a larger representation for all ethnic groups. The Pentagon, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, backs Chalabi, preferring him to someone they can’t control.
The State Department asked a key opposition member, Kanaan Makiyeh, to draw up a document defining the opposition’s role both before and after an invasion, for use as the main working paper at the conference. The idea is to identify some common positions. But the 100-page document, “The Transition to Democracy in Iraq,” has so far had the opposite effect. It has exposed the split over plans for a government in exile, and could not decide the fate of the Baath Party — the backbone of Iraq’s society, which includes millions of people who did not join voluntarily — nor the degree of religious freedom allowed Shias, who account for most of the population. As far as many Iraqis are concerned, exiled or not, regime change is good if it gets rid of Saddam, provided it does not fracture social cohesion, nor open the door to endless purges and score-settling under the pretext of democracy.
The last of several drafts of the document is now being discussed with the US administration before the conference, in the hope it will actually go ahead on Dec. 10.
It’s doubtful the US can succeed in creating a core leadership to run a country of 25 million people out of the 4 million Kurds and 3 million Iraqis in exile. Washington’s leak of plans for a US military government once Saddam has gone are already alarming the exiles, prompting the descendant of the last Iraqi monarch, Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, to warn that it’s “not wise for America to play the policeman” or to treat Iraq as a “colony.”
By Ruba Husari, London
(Published in Energy Compass, 28 November 2002)