Iraqis threaten to go it alone

Close to five months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, frustration with the slow pace of rebuilding and the rapid decline in security is giving prominent Iraqis a platform to promote going it alone.

In two key spheres in which the US-led coalition is having a difficult time asserting its authority - security and governance - prominent Iraqis are threatening to ignore or upstage the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) plans for Iraq.

Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum, a highly respected Shiite cleric who withdrew from the interim Governing Council this week, says that he may set up militias around Iraq to address deteriorating security. Mr. Ulloum, who was appointed to the council in July by US officials, said he was leaving the council after a car bombing in Najaf a week ago killed at least 85 people, including Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, one of the country's most senior Shiite leaders.

Such militias, already being organized by other groups who were initially supportive of ousting Saddam Hussein, could pose a challenge to US or multinational forces' attempts to assert control over the country.

This week's appointment of Iraqis to head the government ministries was intended to show progress in turning over decision- making powers to Iraqis. But at the same time, other Iraqi figures are now organizing a nationwide conference that will promote itself as the true face of the Iraqi democracy.

The Constitutional Monarchy Movement (CMM), led by Sherif Ali bin Hussein - a Hashemite family prince who is considered by royalists to be the heir to the Iraqi monarchy deposed in 1958 - is organizing a conference of what he says will be approximately 500 political, professional, tribal, and legal leaders from all over Iraq. The conference, which Mr. Hussein says will be held here later this month, will contest Washington's postwar approach in Iraq.

"The whole society feels like they've been denied the right to participate," says Hussein in an interview.

"We have been in discussions for six weeks, and what we are building is a consensus of the real Iraqis. Iraq is occupied and we need to discuss how we should deal with the occupation authorities, because so far, that relationship is one-sided."

Hussein, who returned here in June after being shuttled out of the country during a violent coup at the age of two, says that the conference will draw on law experts to challenge some facets of US policy here as illegal, and will demand that delegates to the constitutional convention that CPA Administrator Paul Bremer intends to call be chosen through nationwide elections. Currently, CPA officials say they will not hold elections until after a constitution is passed in a referendum - probably at the end of 2004.

"The governing council is a step in the right direction, but it is hardly acceptable that they are merely appointees," Hussein says. "The American coalition has veto power, so the council lacks legitimacy. "

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