- The Bush administration is losing patience with the self-interest
and sluggishness of Iraq's Governing Council and is considering finding
an alternative, a paper reported on Sunday.
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- US officials think members of the US-appointed IGC, under
interim president Jalal Talabani, are too focused on their own interests
and moving too slowly to draft a new constitution - a US prerequisite for
a power handover - the Washington Post said, citing senior US officials.
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- "We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting
as a legislative or governing body, and we need to get moving," a
US official quoted by the paper said.
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- The Post said Robert Blackwill, an official on the White
House National Security Council overseeing Iraq's political transition,
was embarking on an unannounced trip to Iraq this weekend to underscore
US concerns.
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- Blackwill would discuss possible alternatives with Paul
Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq.
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- A spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in
Baghdad, which has so far tried to boost the credibility of the council,
refused to comment on the report when contacted by Aljazeera.net.
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- Pressure
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- The United States is under international pressure to
transfer power to Iraqis as soon as possible, as it searches for ways to
stabilise the nation and bring its troops home.
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- US and French officials said the United States was considering
a French proposal, rejected earlier, to create an interim Iraqi leadership
similar to the government formed in postwar Afghanistan, according to the
paper.
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- Officials quoted by the paper indicated, however, that
the United States was still focused on working with the council in an effort
to meet a 15 December deadline set by the United Nations for laying out
a timetable and programme for drafting a constitution and holding elections.
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- "There's no sword yet over their heads," one
official told the paper.
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- Still, the paper also said US officials were exploring
the possibility of creating a provisional authority to govern until a new
constitution was written and elections held, which would mark a departure
from Washington's position that a new constitution was needed before power
would be turned over.
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- "If our exit is going to take longer, if it looks
like it could go more than two years to get it all done, then there's an
incentive to look into a transitional phase and some other governing mechanism,"
the paper quoted a US State Department official as saying.
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- Patience required
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- Adil Abd al-Mahdi, a council member from the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told the paper that the US
would have to be patient. "Figuring out how to write the constitution
is the most important thing we will do. We have to make sure we take the
time to do this right," he said.
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- Another council member said that the council was breaking
new ground.
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- "The council is trying its best. You have to remember
we are 24 personalities," said Muwafaq Rabiyi, a Shia physician and
former exile in Britain. "We have never worked together. There is
no precedent for what we are doing."
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- © 2003 Aljazeera.Net
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8E30FECC-80DC-4079-AF7B-AD6C4953CDB1.htm
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