US President George Bush needs more than signing cermonies to restore confidence in his handling of the situation in Iraq, reports Khaled Dawoud from Washington The bloody massacres in Karbala and Baghdad last week, and the embarrassing delay in signing the long-awaited Iraqi interim constitution did not deter members of the Bush administration from claiming that major progress was achieved there. However, it was obvious for observers that eight months ahead of a challenging presidential election, US President George W Bush is desperate to bring home good news, regardless of the extremely volatile and dangerous situation in Iraq. The Iraqi interim constitution, providing broad guidelines on how Iraq will be ruled until popular elections are held by the end of this year or early next year, was finally signed on Monday. But only a few hours after the approval of the document, the figure who is now proving the real power broker in Iraq, Shia clergyman Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, said he only accepted it to preserve national unity, and that it should be changed later. It was Sistani's objections that caused the delay in the first place and left the Iraqi orchestra on Friday entertaining guests of the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for hours on end, ruining a ceremony eagerly anticipated by Bush election strategists. Ever the optimists, Bush administration officials saw this as another positive indication of how democracy was developing in Iraq, and praised the fact that Iraqis managed to debate their most important issues freely for the first time in decades. "It's democracy in action," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a television interview on Monday. "Look at the way they arrived at it -- by fighting, by debating, by disagreeing, by having to stop the signing ceremony on Friday in order to go consult -- and they come back, and here it is on a wonderful Monday morning, they signed this document, which is revolutionary, putting in place a constitutional democratic process," he added. The fact that some of the most important aspects of the interim law were deferred, particularly outlining the mechanism that will lead to the formation of an interim government to take over power from the CPA on 1 July, was no big deal for US officials. They also downplayed disagreements among the 25 members of the US hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) ahead of signing the interim constitution over the rights of minorities, particularly the Kurds and the Sunnis. US officials said discussions on these subjects will continue in coming months, and preparations are underway for another major ceremony on 30 June. However, ethnic tensions and the possibility of civil war in Iraq is now a looming threat for many Iraqis, particularly following the massacres at Shia holy sites last week, in which more than 180 people were killed. Seeking to reaffirm the Bush administration's image as one on a mission and devoted to long-term goals, Powell told Fox News, "just imagine the impact that this document is going to have, not only in Iraq but in that part of the world. The rights of all citizens, to include women, committing this Arab nation to democracy; a free and independent judiciary; the military firmly under civilian controls." Reading between the lines, the crux of Powell's message was clear: To be able to achieve his mega plans for the Middle East, Bush needs a second term in office. In some opinion polls, many of those who supported Bush for a second term said he was the one who entangled the US in Iraq, and he should probably stay in office to fix the situation. Meanwhile, US officials said they remained committed to the 30 June deadline of handing over power to an interim Iraqi government, another move which many observers fear will also be mainly ceremonial. Pentagon officials have already backtracked on their pre-war claims, in which they said they would be able to nearly halve the number of US troops in Iraq in one year. Senior military personnel who testified recently in front of the Congress said they now expected to maintain a presence of 100,000 troops until early 2006, and refused to provide any assessment on future war costs because that depended largely on the development of the situation on the ground and the success in restoring security. When asked in a recent interview what would he do on 30 June, Paul Bremer, the head of CPA, said he would go and get some good sleep. The CPA will be dissolved and all of its responsibilities will be handed over to what the Bush administration is planning as one of the largest US embassies in the world, with more than 3,000 personnel. However, even this move will evidently be problematic, and largely ceremonial. The new US diplomatic mission will maintain the CPA's headquarters at Saddam's presidential palace in Baghdad, located in the area known as the Green Zone, citing mainly security fears. The ability of the Iraqi police to take over responsibility for security in Iraq was also another issue questioned by observers. Iraqi police continue to be poorly equipped and lack the training to confront those leading anti-US operations. Even US occupation officials acknowledged they expected a surge in attacks ahead of the 30 June date, with the goal of proving the failure of the Bush administration officials in restoring stability to Iraq. Reflecting the difficulty facing Bush in convincing the US public, let alone the rest of the world, that he was making progress in Iraq, an opinion poll published at the Washington Post on Tuesday stated that only 46 per cent of those surveyed supported his handling of the situation there. According to the same poll, 57 per cent said they wanted their next president to steer the country on a different course than that followed by Bush. If elections were to be held now, the Washington Post -ABC News poll added, Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry, would beat Bush by four per cent, while the Republican president's overall approval rating stood at 50 per cent, the lowest since he took office in 2000. Participants in the poll were not only unhappy about Iraq, but also over the economy, unemployment, health care and education. With most experts noting that Bush will mainly seek to emphasise his foreign policy agenda during the campaign, highlighting his record as a "war president" whose first job is to protect the security of the American people, developments in Iraq will likely remain a very decisive factor in the coming months. More ceremonies will likely be held, and the Iraqi orchestra, whose members President Bush met with two months ago to praise their presence as another sign of progress in Iraq, will probably be invited. But whether the situation on the ground will actually improve remains to be seen in the coming months, which will prove decisive for Bush and the rest of the world.
