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posted February 17, 2004, updated 12:00 p.m.

Will US delay Iraq sovereignty transfer?

Some US officials say June deadline won't work, but Bremer says it must.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

As the June 30th deadline for the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to Iraqis moves closer, a rift has developed between US authorities in Washington and in Baghdad over the date. Newsweek reports that some senior White House officials, who are very worried about the possibilities of a civil war in Iraq, still say they genuinely don't know whether the June 30 date will stick. Less than a week ago, The Los Angeles Times reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Congressional committee that the administration might be forced to delay the date because of continuing violence in Iraq.

But Newsweek reports that Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, has been adamant about the June 30th date, in order for the US to keep its credibility with Iraqis. Mr. Bremer's position on the handover date is strongly backed by Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and is expected to be supported in the report of UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi. "The Bremer-Brahimi-Sistani axis will beat the day," says a Bush official. "We ain't changing the date."

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The Associated Press reports that while US authorities are saying that they will stick to the June deadline, any US plan to use regional caucuses as a way to pick a new interim government appears to be a lost cause. The Washington Post reports that most members of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council no longer support the US plan, and instead want the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be held. But the Post says some US officials say the Council's reasons for asking for power are " selfish." With elections likely by early next year, council members could use the time to "engage in patronage and skew balloting rules."

In another transfer wrinkle, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that while some Shiite members of the council are willing to change their demands for early elections, they want to be assured that an appointed transitional government would reflect their political dominance as Iraq's majority group.

"There are two choices: elections, or compromises that respect the existing balances," said Adel Abdel Mahdi, a senior official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the top party among Shiites who form 60 per cent of the population and hold a like share of Council seats. "There can't be any playing of the one issue against the other. If you refuse the elections, then you have to accept the balances."

Joseph Galloway of The Miami Herald writes that among those US authorities that will be happy to see the transfer of sovereignty take place are the people at the Pentagon who planned the war. "Iraq is now a contaminated environment and [US Secretary of Defense] Rumsfeld and his people want out," said one senior administration official to Galloway. "They can't wait for July 1 when the CPA turns into the US Embassy and the whole mess they have made becomes Colin Powell's.

For instance, Mr. Rumsfeld, the Herald reports, demanded and got complete authority over the military, over the civilian authority in charge of rebuilding the country, over the administration's $87 billion Iraq and Afghanistan budget, over every line of every contract awarded. Among the problems the Pentagon will be allegedly happy to get rid of is the relationship with the US company Halliburton, which has won the lion's share of contracts to rebuild Iraq and supply US troops. US Vice President Dick Cheney was formerly Halliburton's chief executive.

In the latest controversy involving Halliburton, Reuters reports that said on Monday it would defer billing for an additional $140 million in meals for US forces in Iraq and Kuwait until a discrepancy is reconciled between the number of meals ordered and those actually served. In a separate dispute settled earlier, Halliburton refunded the US government $6.3 million after acknowledging that one or two former employees apparently took kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor. And the BBC reports that the Kuwait government says it will establish a panel to " examine allegations of overcharging in a multi-million dollar contract to supply oil to the US Army in Iraq." US auditors say the Army may have paid $61 million extra for oil it bought from Kuwaiti suppliers in a deal with Halliburton.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the rifts, mentioned above, that continue to develop between the State Department and the Pentagon, and the effect that the disagreements are having on US foreign policy. The Monitor reports that the failure to see eye to eye extends to the so-called Bush doctrine of preemptive war – one of the administration's defining policies – and reaches to the president's top foreign-policy players.

"Perhaps a second term would resolve things, but right now there continues to be a very fundamental disagreement," says Karl Inderfurth, a Clinton administration State Department official now at George Washington University. The highly visible rift is between elements "led by the vice-president, the secretary of defense, and his deputy [Paul Wolfowitz], who hold to a notion of America's unique right to unfettered action, and others, allied with Secretary Powell, who continue to argue for an emphasis on what he has called a 'strategy of partnership' with the international community."

The Associated Press reports that a vivid example of this divide occurred recently, when Mr. Powell went out of his way at the United Nations to try to mend relations with France that were damaged by the Iraq war.

"We had a major disagreement last year and, you know, disagreements come and disagreements go. And now we are all working together to press for peace and development and democracy around the world."

At the same time, Rumsfeld was in Germany saying that he did not regret calling France and Germany, which also opposed the war, "old Europe." Many Europeans considered his comment, made last year, an insult. When asked whether he felt bad about what he said, Rumsfeld replied, "No I don't regret it. I'm too old to have regrets."

Finally, CNN reports Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa wants US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to admit they made a mistake in launching an "immoral war" in Iraq. It's the only way, he said, they can reclaim international credibility.

"How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures, and not God, and thus by definition can make mistakes," Tutu said in a speech in London on Monday. "Weak and insecure people hardly ever say, 'Sorry.' It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying, 'I made a mistake.'

Mr. Tutu was the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as a unifying leader in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.