Competing visions for post-war Iraq

The Bush administration is expected to appoint a temporary authority to govern Iraq even before Baghdad falls and Saddam Hussein's regime is routed.

Administration officials say they are considering installing a government that includes prominent Iraqi exiles in areas under the control of US-led forces while the regime in Baghdad is increasingly isolated. Then, "whatever's happening inside Baghdad is almost irrelevant compared to what's going on in the rest of the country," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. Over time, Mr. Hussein and his inner circle will completely lose their ability to communicate with Iraq's military forces, which are already in a state of disarray.

The regime's hold on power has been significantly weakened by more than two weeks of relentless air strikes targeting its command and control infrastructure, including vital communications facilities. And US ground forces working to surround the city are securing sites of strategic and symbolic importance. Saddam International Airport was the first of these to fall into coalition hands after a high-pitched battle Thursday night and Friday.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the major proponent of the interim Iraqi authority in Iraq, according to "US News and World Report." It says Mr. Rumsfeld sent two memos to President Bush this week requesting that the US "support those Iraqis who share the president's objectives for a free Iraq." Rumsfeld said this will turn international perceptions in favor of the US.

Key European allies, however, have presented a competing vision of a post-war Iraq, one that favors UN-backed administration and reconstruction.

Competing visions

"Based on what we have heard so far from the US administration, it seems like they would like their own version of post-war Iraq, including how it's run and by whom," says Mustapha Karkouti, a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

Mr. Karkouti says that while European countries, including Britain, would not be averse to the US playing an advisory capacity, they would "like to see the United Nations playing what they call a vital and important role, not the supporting role the US administration seems willing to give it," he adds.

In Brussels on Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged wide consensus that the UN has a role to play in post-war Iraq, but stressed the US and Britain would play the lead role.

Mr. Powell's comments clashed with the view in European capitals. "The United Nations is the only international organization that can give legitimacy to this," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin after meeting Powell Thursday.

After a meeting with his German and Russian counterparts on Friday, Mr. Villepin told reporters "There should be no discussion either on the principle or on the terms" of UN participation in Iraq. "No country or countries can hope to win the war alone. Nobody can hope to build peace alone."

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