Governing council put in frame as US makes no bones about how situation is unravelling

Rory McCarthy
Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian

The unscheduled summit in Washington over the future of Iraq reflected intense White House unease about the way the situation is unravelling in the country.

Paul Bremer, who was flying back to Baghdad last night, has been leading a Coalition Provisional Authority that has become frustrated with the work of the Iraqi Governing Council.

In private, American and British officials in the CPA can barely disguise their disappointment at a body which has been criticised for tardiness and inefficiency.

The council, now 24 people, was intended to be an advisory group, but under pressure from Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative killed in a bombing in August, it was handed more responsibility. US officials hoped its members would quickly chose a leader, then appoint ministers. But it took several weeks even to decide who should be president and in the end settled on a compromise: nine of them would lead the council in a rotating presidency.

Weeks later, ministers were named, but the council has yet to make a decision on its most important task: the creation of a committee to draft Iraq's new constitution - the Americans had hoped the drafting would begin as early as last August. Last month a committee reported to the council on forming a group to write the constitution. Yet no decision has been taken on its proposals.

Officials complain that several council members are routinely absent from the three days of meetings each week, often leaving only four or five of the original members at the table.

For their part, the Iraqis on the council are aware that as American appointees they lack the legitimacy of an elected body. They say they lack authority and that key decisions are taken without reference to the council.

The disarray of the Iraqi Governing Council merely reflects the disarray of the Bush Administration and the Coalition Provisional Authority regarding policy in Iraq. Howdy et al went into Iraq with absolutely no frim plan for a port war Iraq. They went in on the assumption that America would be welcomed as a savior, an assumption fostered by Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and our beloved President himself. This assumption was based on information from Iraqi National Congress and thoroughly spun through the "Office of Special Projects" (Rummy's ideologically bent intel office).

The Administration has no one to blame for the quagmire in Iraq but themselves. But following the pattern they have throughout their political careers, they seek to blame others for their failings.