A six-months time frame for Iraqis to write a new constitution is a good idea, but are Iraqis willing to wait, asks Salah Hemeid US President George W Bush held an intensive round of meetings with allies to press for help in Iraq, but he won no immediate offers of aid, and administration officials now say it might take as long as a month to finalise a new United Nations resolution on Iraq that would procure more international troops and funds for Iraq. The proposed resolution also calls for the Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) to set a timetable for drafting a constitution and electing a permanent government. Without such a resolution, other countries are unlikely to send troops to Iraq. As a result, thousands of additional US soldiers may have to be called up for service in the war-battered nation. Although US officials say Bush has won considerable sympathy for the American point of view, differences remain over Iraq�s future government. The French prefer a rapid transfer of power, arguing that the anti- occupation bombings and general insecurity in Iraq stem in large part from deep resentment against the American-led occupation. France says that any new resolution might include a specific timetable for the transfer of authority to the Iraqis. Many countries, including heavyweights Russia, Germany and China are sympathetic to the French view. American officials counter that transferring sovereignty to the 25-member IGC, which was hand-picked by the United States, might stir even more resentment among Iraqis who believe it lacks legitimacy. Washington�s official stance is thus that the transition to self-rule should not be rushed. As a nod to countries insisting the United States restore Iraqi sovereignty as soon as possible, Secretary of State Colin Powell has proposed that the IGC work towards a new constitution in six months. Meanwhile, Congress this week began a heated debate over the allocation of reconstruction funds for Iraq, and members from both parties demanded changes in Bush�s $20.3 billion request. The dispute is over how much of the reconstruction bill US taxpayers should foot and what specific projects should be funded. The administration�s request stirred the most pointed debate on Iraq policy to date, as well as the sharpest criticism, despite consensus on Capitol Hill that Iraq needs financial aid in the wake of Saddam Hussein�s ouster. Moreover, anti-war protesters on both coasts took to the streets to denounce Bush and demand a pullout of US troops from Iraq. Rallies were held Sunday in Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco, following international protests Saturday in London, Athens, Paris and elsewhere. At a rally following the march in Los Angeles, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said that US troops should be pulled out of Iraq and replaced by international forces. With these domestic debates raging, IGC member Ahmad Chalabi demanded that the IGC be given at least partial control of finance and security and rejected the idea of sending more foreign troops to Iraq. Chalabi, currently holding the rotating presidency of the IGC, was also in New York lobbying other nations for the swift transfer of some sovereignty to the IGC. Although Chalabi, a long-time Pentagon-supported opposition figure, later retracted these remarks made to The New York Times, it was unclear if he had at first been expressing the view of the IGC or only his personal view. Reports from Baghdad have suggested that the members are divided over whether to push for the early transfer of full power to the IGC. While former Iraqi opposition leaders who helped persuade the Bush administration to topple Saddam and are currently vying for power seem to favour such an expedient transfer, independent members fear that this will put these leaders and their militias in the driver�s seat of any future government and exclude the country�s many religious and ethnic groups from developing an organic form of governance. Even as the Bush administration seems interested in a UN resolution that would mitigate the increasing human and financial costs of its occupation, it refuses a rushed transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, even if the dilation of this process costs the US greater international partnership in Iraq. Administration officials say such a transfer of power may take at least a year, arguing that no figure with authority has yet emerged in Iraq. Privately, some American and British officials say that they are concerned that if an election was held today, a Shi�ite Muslim cleric might well dominate the polling on the strength of the 60 per cent Shi�ite share of the population. Instead, Washington seems to favour a successful constitutional conference as a precondition for handing over control to Iraqis. The constitutional convention will have to determine the right form of government for Iraq�s distinctive ethno-religious mix. Any electoral system based on this mix will have to be able to keep the streets calm and the lights on. Washington hopes that six months to a year of constitution writing and preparations for national elections will allow an electable, moderate and secular Shi�ite leader to emerge as head of the first democratic government here, one that would have the competence and confidence to avoid tilting toward the conservative Islamists of Iran. Still, impatience is beginning to grow as Iraqis chafe at the strictures of an American-led occupation that, they say, has in some cases slowed reconstruction due to the centralisation of power in the hands of the military commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, and the chief civilian administrator, Paul Bremer. American and British officials have been running the country for nearly six months, but security in any sense of the word is far from being restored. Bremer�s Coalition Provisional Authority has failed to stabilise electricity supplies, end water shortages or even return normal traffic patterns in the capital. Bremer himself admitted last week that some Iraqis are beginning to regard the US soldiers as occupiers and not as liberators as the administration would have hoped. With Bush�s ratings in public opinion polls dropping as an election year approaches, with the occupation forces under daily attack and billions being spent to rebuild Iraq, the US administration is certainly in a quagmire. If further crises emerge, it could begin to cede power to the IGC, an appointed rather than an elected body that many consider a puppet government. America�s venture in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, seems troubled. The only way out for America�s ideologues and Iraq�s people is the establishment of a democratic and prosperous Iraq, a possibility resting upon the framing of a constitution and holding of elections, both of which must empower a government truly representative of the nation�s diversity.
