The occupation of Iraq is legally over. But what lies beyond the formalities, asks Omayma Abdel-Latif When former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appears in a Baghdad court today it will be in a very different city, a very different country, to the one over which he presided. His appearance comes three days after the 13 month US-led occupation of Iraq formally ended with Monday's transfer of sovereignty. The US civil administrator's departure from Iraq leaves a host of unresolved issues that go to the heart of the sovereignty issue and the extent of US influence on the future political process in Iraq remains far from clear. News of the transfer of legal custody of Saddam Hussein to the interim government overshadowed the long awaited transfer of power, scheduled to take place on Wednesday and then secretly brought forward in an attempt to wrong foot possible attempts to sabotage a much-needed publicity stunt for the Bush administration. Many US commentators now think Bush's chances of a second term are wholly dependent on the success of the interim government in keeping good news flowing out of Iraq over the coming months. Iraqis had been bracing themselves for an avalanche of attacks as the much trailed 30 June transfer date approached, with predictions of an escalation in violence dominating both the Iraqi and Western press. Yet the two days following the handover have been marked by relative calm. The transfer of sovereignty is a key part of the process stipulated in 15 November agreement signed by the US-led occupying authorities and the dissolved Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). The main task of the new interim government, according to the agreement, is to prepare the ground for elections, due to be held by January 2005. The government's mandate is only seven months, and its room for manoeuvre severely circumscribed, not least by the presence of 160,000 foreign troops over which it has no control. Hardly surprising, then, that many Iraqis view the transfer of sovereignty with a mixture of caution and scepticism. Saddam's transfer to the custody of the Iraqi interim government is similarly incomplete. Under international law the US has no right to hold prisoners of war after formally ending its occupation of Iraq and so a legal exit had to be found for the Americans. Iraq's former president, technically in the custody of Iraq's new government, remains under heavy US guard. Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has announced that Saddam's trial, which will take months to begin, will be "fair, just and public". But Saddam's trial, whatever its eventual publicity value as a sideshow for President Bush, is the last thing Allawi's government, and ordinary Iraqi citizens, have to worry about in the coming period. "There are far more pressing day-to-day issues to grapple with," Nazim Al-Jasour, director of the Centre for International Studies at Baghdad University told Al-Ahram Weekly on Wednesday. Restoring security and improving living and economic conditions remained the highest priority, he said. What is at stake, believes Al-Jasour, is the government's own survival which will depend on its ability to impose law and order ahead of anything else, including democracy. "It will be virtually impossible for this government to deliver on its security promises on the one hand and on the other to prepare Iraq for representative elections in just seven months. Something has got to give and in this case I believe security concerns will prevail." Allawi has repeatedly threatened to resort to an iron- fist policy against what he calls "the terrorists who seek to destroy Iraq". Reversing declared US policy Allawi successfully argued for the recruitment and rehabilitation of former Baathist officers in the new army and police force. In a boost to Allawi's efforts NATO agreed earlier this week to Allawi's request for help in training Iraqi security forces. The move ended speculation as to whether NATO would play a role in post-Saddam Iraq, even if it fell short of Washington's hopes the alliance would send troops. Al-Jasour, along with other Iraqi observers, believes the agreement over training will be a crucial factor in allowing the interim government to tackle the security situation, which must be done to allow for a pull out of foreign troops. UN resolution 1546 does grant the interim government the right to request the withdrawal of troops but Allawi and members of his government have repeatedly underlined that it will not make use of this provision during its term of office. "But sovereignty is not just a legal document," Abdel-Majeed Al-Samaraei, of the Iraqi Islamic party, told the Weekly. "It is about how you control the realities on the ground." The only way to test how much power the Allawi government has over the foreign troops and the police, Al-Samaraei argues, will be to watch their day-to-day handling of the Iraqi scene. Al-Samaraei is not alone in believing the interim government faces enormous challenges in the days ahead. The toughest of them, he believes, will be to prove to the Iraqis that it is the interim government and not the Americans that is running the country. "It would be very naive to think that the transfer of sovereignty will change Iraqi perceptions of foreign troops as occupiers and the interim government as not representative of the Iraqi people. They will continue to view them as such."
