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Iraqi opposition groups may neet soon
( 2003-02-21 09:07 ) (7 )

A long-planned and oft-delayed meeting of Iraqi opposition groups may, at last, begin this weekend amid rising anger over US plans to set up a military government in Baghdad once Saddam Hussein's regime is toppled.

Despite factional squabbling and geopolitical wrangling, the various opposition groups and foreign participants gathering here in Kurdish northern Iraq are putting on a show of unity before a threatened US-led military assault on Iraq.

All the groups call for a democratic, parliamentary post-Saddam Iraq and have denounced US plans that they say will bypass opposition organizations in favor of military rule.

US officials told a Senate committee this month that the Bush administration envisages a transition from a US-run military government to an Iraqi civilian government in charge of Iraq's vast oil reserves as quickly as possible.

"The US proposal is against democracy," said Hamid al-Bayati of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which represents Shiite Muslims. "If the Americans impose military rule, this will give a pretext for some fundamentalists in the region to encourage terrorism."

Key differences remain among the opposition groups, the regional governments and the United States, which patrols the skies together with Britain to protect this autonomous enclave from Saddam's forces.

The two main Iraqi Kurdish parties that run the self-rule area, as well as the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI) and Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress will have a large presence at the meeting. White House adviser Zalmay Khalilzad is also scheduled to attend.

Iraqi opposition figures have trickled steadily into the mountainous Kurdish area from abroad over the last week, slowed by snowstorms on the US east coast and in Iran, a transit point for northern Iraq.

The meeting is to begin when 40 of the 65-member steering committee members arrive, which should be either Saturday or Sunday, said Hoshyar Zebari, foreign relations chief for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls the western half of the Kurdish autonomous area.

Organizers of the meeting - originally planned during a December conference of opposition groups - have outlined a modest four- or five-day agenda of adding new names to the steering committee and setting up subcommittees on political, international and military affairs.

Participants may also appoint a "council of three wise men" to guide the future course of the Iraqi opposition, said Sadi Abdul Rahman, deputy prime minister of the Irbil-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The council of three likely would include one member of each main cultural group in Iraq: an Arab Sunni Muslim, an Arab Shiite Muslim and a Kurd.

Although the meeting may advance the goal of creating the framework for a future Baghdad government, its objectives will fall far short of declaring a provisional or temporary post-Saddam Baghdad government, opposition figures said.

Many Kurdish officials of both the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) expressed private misgivings about the meeting and about Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella group that has been denouncing the US-proposed military plan and pushing the Kurds to declare a provisional government at the meeting, officials said.

The Kurds say they oppose a military regime in Baghdad, but suggest they won't fight hard to stop it. In a recent poll of Kurdish views on the leadership of a post-Saddam Iraq conducted by the Irbil-based Iraqi Institute of Democracy, an unspecified US military commander ranked higher than Chalabi, who came in dead last.