Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La democrazia Iraqena e' rimandata alle calende greche

Prima l'obiettivo della guerra era di distruggere le armi di
distruzione di
massa.  
Poi, e' diventato portare liberta e democrazia al popolo Iraqeno.
Oggi, che sara'?
Dal New York Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0517-02.htm
In Reversal, Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off 
by Patrick E. Ty
 
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 16 - In an abrupt reversal, the United States and
Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi opposition
forces to form a national assembly and an interim government by the
end of the month.
Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction
efforts here told exile leaders in a meeting tonight that allied
officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period,
said Iraqis who attended the meeting. It was conducted by L. Paul
Bremer, the new civilian administrator here.
Mr. Bremer, who was accompanied by John Sawers, a British diplomat
representing Prime Minister Tony Blair, told the Iraqi political
figures that the allies preferred to revert to the concept of creating
an "interim authority" - not a provisional government - so that Iraqis
could assist them by creating a constitution for Iraq, revamping the
educational system and devising a plan for future democratic
elections.
"It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some
interim body, because it will not have the strength or the resources
to carry those responsibilities out," The Associated Press quoted Mr.
Sawers as saying. "There was agreement that we should aim to have a
national conference as soon as we reasonably could do so."
One Iraqi who attended the meeting said Iraqi opposition leaders
expressed strong disappointment over the reversal.
The decision comes at a time when Washington and London have been
taking new steps to restore law and order in Iraq, cope with the
devastation of civilian institutions and halt the looting and violent
crime.
These conditions have emboldened former opposition figures to move
rapidly into the political vacuum in Iraq, and former members of
Saddam Hussein's government and the Baath Party to blame the allies
for fomenting collapse, unemployment and suffering among the
population.
In a step calculated to combat any resurgence of Baath Party influence
here, Mr. Bremer today issued an order banning up to 30,000
top-ranking members "from future employment in the public sector."
"By this means, the coalition provisional authority will ensure that
representative government in Iraq is not threatened by Baathist
elements returning to power and that those in positions of authority
in the future are acceptable to the people of Iraq," Mr. Bremer said
in a statement.
Today's decision to extend allied control indefinitely over the
governing of Iraq was conveyed to Iraqi political figures as the
United States and Britain worked assiduously at the United Nations to
win broad international consensus for a resolution to lift economic
sanctions on Iraq, in order to begin selling oil to finance
reconstruction.
In seeking support, the allies are facing demands for a greater United
Nations role in shaping postwar Iraq, including a setting of the terms
by which an "interim authority" would make the transition to
democratically elected government.
"They want broader support because they are desperate to get the oil
pumping," said an Iraqi who attended the meeting. Mr. Sawers, who is
Britain's outgoing ambassador to Egypt, spoke of the need to complete
the "tactical" measures of re-establishing legal and social
institutions before vesting a government with sovereign control.
The Iraqi who attended the meeting added that the decision also
appeared to reflect apprehensions in the Bush administration, and more
intensely in London, that the former Iraqi opposition forces are still
a disparate group and that the Kurdish leaders as well have yet to
coalesce into a ruling body.
The fear is that a divided or weak interim government will not be able
to withstand the intense and at times conflicting ethnic and religious
pressures that have tended to divide Iraq instead of cementing it
together.
"I don't think they trust this group to function as a political
leadership," said the Iraqi political figure who attended. "And for us
it is very difficult to participate in something that we have no
control over. We don't want to be part of the blame committee when
something goes wrong."
Opposition leaders were "very respectful" to Mr. Bremer and Mr.
Sawers, a participant said, "but I think everyone was also pretty
forceful about the need to have full sovereignty for the Iraqis." A
question they kept posing, he added, was, "Do you want to run this
place, or should we?"
No date was set for creating an interim authority, and no details
about its powers and functions were discussed in the meeting, the
Iraqis said. Mr. Bremer said he would meet with the opposition leaders
for further discussions in two weeks.
"They retracted what they said before," an Iraqi political figure
said. The provisional government idea is gone, he said. As for the
idea of convening a national assembly to select a government, he said,
"there is no such thing anymore."
Today's decision was a disappointment for the former opposition forces
and their supporters in the Pentagon and the Congress, where officials
had been pressing for an early turnover of sovereign power to a
government formed by the opposition groups.
On April 28, the United States and Britain sponsored a political
gathering of about 300 Iraqis and supported their call for a national
conference to meet by the end of May to select a transitional
government. Zalmay Khalilzad, who has served as President Bush's envoy
to the Iraqi opposition, was a co-chairman of the April meeting, but
did not return to Iraq for tonight's meeting.
On May 5, Jay Garner, the civilian administrator who preceded Mr.
Bremer, said the core of a new Iraqi government would emerge this
month. "Next week, or by the second weekend in May, you'll see the
beginning of a nucleus of a temporary Iraqi government, a government
with an Iraqi face on it that is totally dealing with the coalition,"
General Garner said during a visit to Basra.
At that time, he said he expected such a government to include figures
like Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Ayad Allawi of the
Iraqi National Accord, the Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal
Talabani, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Since then, the group of former exiles and their Kurdish allies has
expanded their leadership council to include another Sunni Muslim
leader and another Shiite Muslim leader.
The Iraqi figures were also surprised by the reversal since it
appeared in recent weeks that Pentagon officials had persuaded the
White House that the best course was to turn over power as quickly as
possible to opposition forces.
But as the breadth of systemic breakdown in Iraq has become more
visible, a counterargument has grown - that the failure of the
opposition to make the transition to a viable government would reflect
poorly on the allied victory over Mr. Hussein and add to instability.
General Garner attended tonight's meeting but spoke very little,
participants said. He was accompanied by Ryan Crocker, a deputy
assistant secretary of state.
Attending from the Pentagon was Walter Slocombe, who has been given
the assignment to examine the growing problem of how to get under
control the military forces that each of the main opposition leaders
now controls in Iraq. He is said to be working on a plan to meld them
into a national security force, a task that would require Kurdish
leaders to give up control over their armies.
The opposition leaders were also asked to meet on Tuesday with Lt.
Gen. John Abazaid, deputy to Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall American
commander in the Middle East and South Asia, to discuss how the
opposition groups can contribute to improving security.
All of the Iraqi figures were pleased with Mr. Bremer's decision on
dismantling the Baath Party. Nonetheless, Mr. Bremer reserved the
right to himself to make exceptions to the ban in cases where the
knowledge and expertise of a former Baath official might be essential
to government functions, where the person's prior membership in the
party was deemed nonthreatening and where a renunciation of Baath
principles had been secured.

 
Peccato che il Torrieri, disinformatore di professione, si e'
dimenticato di dire che tutto il castello di carte si basa su "voci" di
iraqueni che sarebbero stati presenti all'incontro :)
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said Iraqis who attended the meeting. 
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-Stefano