Iraqis hit plans for interim regime

Mr. Janabi and others, meanwhile, reject a large role for most of the political parties that make up the Governing Council. "All of these are American creatures - they don't represent Iraq," says Janabi, who leads the Janabis, a Sunni triangle tribe with some half a million members. "In Iraq, you have several things: tribal, professional associations, women, and ethnic groups. That's our civil society. Not bogus claims by some religious organizations created after the Americans came to Iraq."

Many of the Iraqis now lobbying for an interim legislature are the same ones who convinced Brahimi, on his last visit to Iraq, to plan a national conference modeled on Afghanistan's loya jirga gathering, with representatives from all facets of Iraqi life - not just ethnic and sectarian groups.

"By having an Iraqi national assembly, we would have a form of election that Iraqis would participate in," says Sheikh Hussein Ali al-Shaalan, head of the Iraqi National Council of Tribes. "If you have a large assembly, that effectively lessens the number of enemies in the street."

Under Brahimi's current plan, the national conference would convene after the executive branch of government was already in place and choose a "consultative assembly" that would serve as an advisory council to the already-existing government. Mr. Shaalan and others, however, want the consultative assembly to have broader powers. They proposed to Brahimi that a national conference of about 1,500 should meet for two days and choose a smaller body of about 250 from among themselves. That smaller group, instead of the president and prime minister, would then appoint the government - ministers and cabinet members - and oversee them as an interim legislature.

"The birth of the government would be more Iraqi and more legitimate than what preceded it," says Shaalan, referring to the Governing Council. "So it will have wider acceptance in the street, and will be able to have sovereignty."

But some experts caution that setting up an interim legislature could prolong the transition period and ultimately delay elections. "Of course they would like to have a democratic government right away, and who can blame them?" says Barnett Rubin, an expert who worked with Brahimi on Afghanistan's Bonn Agreement for post-Taliban transformation. "But it's just not possible. We tried to have that at Bonn, an interim legislature, but the various factions just couldn't agree."

Mr. Rubin points to the controversy that arose during the drafting of Iraq's interim constitution. Iraq's Kurdish minority insisted on a veto of any proposed legislation, angering the Shiite majority. If Iraq were to form an interim legislature, says Rubin, it would likely be rife with similar power struggles.

"The main problem with this interim government is not that it's going to be too powerful, it's that it's going to be too weak," says Rubin. "The fact is, there is a check on the government, and that's the US. It's not the one the Iraqis want, but that's the one it's going to be."

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