U.S.: Iraq to Rule on Coalition Forces

Iraq’s American administrator promised that U.S. and British troops will not stay in the country “any longer than necessary,” while Iraq’s newly formed Governing Council announced plans Tuesday to establish a special court system to prosecute former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime for mass executions, torture and other abuses.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, said that with the establishment of the 25-member Governing Council on Sunday – the first national postwar Iraqi political body – it is now up to Iraqis to write a new constitution for their country, which will then be voted on in a referendum

“Then our job, the coalition’s job, will be done. We have no desire to stay any longer than necessary,” Bremer said. Bremer has tried to portray the new governing council as largely independent, and his Tuesday remarks implied that the business of establishing a working political system – as well as establishing security – is now up to Iraqis. A U.S. departure depends on how quickly they do that.

“The timing of how long the coalition stays here is now in the hands of the Iraqi people,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Arabic television channel Al-Arabiya broadcast a message Tuesday by a group calling itself “Liberating Iraq’s Army,” warning countries from sending multinational troops to Iraq as serving the American occupation.

In a message sent to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the group pledged that resistance to U.S. forces will continue. India recently decided to back out of a pledge to send troops to Iraq, and other countries have also voiced reluctance.

Bringing members of the former regime to justice was among the most pressing issues facing the Governing Council, said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for one of the former opposition groups represented on the new body.

“These are not normal crimes we are talking about. We are talking about killing 8,000 members of the Barzani tribe in 1982. We are talking about killing 300,000 Shiites after the 1991 Gulf War,” Qanbar told reporters.

Human Rights Watch challenged the plan, saying it would put former victims of Saddam and his regime in the position of judging their tormentors and might not result in justice.

Qanbar also announced that three council members, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraq National Congress, former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, and Aquila al-Hashimi, one of the council’s three female members, would travel to the United Nations on July 22 to assert the council’s claim as the rightful government of Iraq.

There was also some reported progress on restoring normal life in the country.

Britain’s foreign secretary said Tuesday that all Iraq’s hospitals and 98 percent of its schools have reopened, but attacks by remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime still hamper reconstruction work.

“The main problems are in the areas to the north and west of Baghdad, the so-called Sunni triangle, from where much of the Republican Guard was recruited,” Jack Straw told the House of Commons.

Attacks by Saddam’s supporters in Baghdad have left the capital receiving only 70 percent to 90 percent of its prewar water supply, Straw said. But he added that across the country more Iraqis are receiving more electricity than before the war and food rations are being distributed to the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s people.

Bremer blamed the country’s continuing electricity shortages on an antiquated system left over from the Saddam regime and sabotage by pro-Saddam insurgents.

“This is a problem we inherited from a regime that for 35 years underinvested in every aspect of this country,” Bremer said under tough questioning from an Iraqi reporter who asked about when essential services finally would be restored to occupied Baghdad and other parts of the country.

The U.S. administrator said it would take months to get Iraq’s phone service, destroyed during the war, in service. But he said a mobile telephone system could be working in the short term.

Bremer again denied there was any central control behind the insurgency, which averages 12 attacks each day on American forces.

“I think we pretty much know in general what we’re up against here. We’re facing a combination of Baathists, Fedayeen and ex-intelligence services operating without central control on a loose basis,” the former diplomat and counterterrorism expert said.

As the council met behind closed doors Monday, the chaos of Iraq’s streets was not far away.

After the meeting ended, an explosion about a quarter-mile (half-kilometer) from the compound turned a black four-wheel drive vehicle owned by the Tunisian Embassy into a burned metal hulk. The site of the blast was a parking lot where journalists leave cars during news conferences.

The target of the blast was not clear.

The Governing Council will begin filling Cabinet positions next week in a gradual process, said Fawzi Hariri, a spokesman the Kurdistan Democratic Party, another group on the council.

“The work to form a Cabinet will begin next week,” Hariri told The Associated Press. “Consultations will begin next week. It may not be that a whole government is formed at once, but ministries will be named, one after the other.”

He rejected criticism that the council lacked independence from Bremer, who was an important architect of the new political body, had a central role in determining its members and has sat in on all of its meetings so far.

“The council will have major authority. It will be the real ruler of Iraq,” Hariri said. “Bremer’s role as a civil administrator of Iraq will be consulting with the Governing Council in some of the matters, especially the security matters since they (the Americans) are the main military force in Iraq.”

The Governing Council has the power to name ministers and approve the 2004 budget. The 25-member body is comprised of prominent Iraqis from all walks of political and religious life and will have some political muscle even though the Americans have made clear Bremer has ultimate control.

The council has just been formed, but there were already challenges to its authority from at home and abroad.

In Kazimyah, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of north Baghdad, thousands turned out Tuesday for the funeral of Ahmed al-Waeli, a prominent cleric who died in Baghdad of natural causes less than a week after his return from exile. Many at the funeral used the occasion to criticize the council, saying it was not elected and illegitimate.

Followers of al-Hawza al-Ilmiyah, Iraq’s highest Shiite Muslim seat of learning based in the southern city of Najaf, handed out leaflets in Baghdad on Monday calling on followers to protest, and several Shiite mosques in the capital made similar pleas at Monday evening prayers.

Also Tuesday, the city council of Fallujah said it rejected the council’s authority because it was selected along ethnic lines. Shiite Muslims hold 13 of the Governing Council’s 25 seats, the first time the country’s Shiite majority has held the reins of national political power. Fallujah lies within an area known as the “Sunni Triangle,” where support for Saddam still runs strong.

Criticism of the council and Iraq’s U.S. and British occupiers also came from the Arab League. Secretary-General Amr Moussa issued a statement Sunday saying that had the new council been elected, “it would have gained much power and credibility.”

U.S. officials say elections are not yet practical in Iraq. The council is meant to be the forerunner of a constitutional assembly, which will pave the way for elections sometime in late 2004 or early 2005.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: AP reporters Bassem Mroue and Hamza Hendawi in Baghdad contributed to this report.