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In Iraq, Council Majority Withdraws Support of Caucus Proposal
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, February 16, 2004; 6:30 PM
BAGHDAD, Feb. 16 -- Most members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council no longer support the Bush administration's plan to choose an interim government through caucuses and instead want the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be held, several members have said.
The caucus proposal, which the council had endorsed in November, is a cornerstone of the administration's plan to end the civil occupation of Iraq this summer. Seeking to lay the foundation for a political system that would shun extremism and keep the country united, the administration had wanted a transitional government selected by carefully vetted local caucuses to run Iraq through the end of next year.
But with Iraqi religious leaders demanding that voting occur much sooner -- and with a growing expectation here that the United Nations will call for elections by the end of this year or early next year -- a majority of Governing Council members have quietly withdrawn their backing for the caucus proposal.
"The caucuses are pretty much dead now," said Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni Muslim council member. Until recently, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, who make up 12 of the council's 25 members, had been the strongest proponents of the caucuses. But in recent days, several Sunni members have joined majority Shiites in opposing the U.S. transition plan.
Another Sunni member, Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy, said that abandoning the caucus system and transferring sovereignty to the council on June 30 -- the date by which the administration has promised to hand over power -- now "makes the most sense." A senior Kurdish leader and council member, Jalal Talabani, said on Sunday that he, too, wants the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be convened.
The loss of support for the caucuses poses a complicated new challenge for the U.S. occupation authority. The council is made up of some of the country's most prominent political leaders. "It's hard to imagine pulling off the caucuses without the Governing Council," one U.S. official said. "What happens when these people -- people we selected -- say they do not support the process? It can't work."
Senior U.S. officials said the council's motives were largely selfish. With elections likely to occur by the end of the year or early next year, sovereignty could give council members unrivaled political influence in the months leading up to the vote, allowing them engage in patronage and skew balloting rules in their favor.
U.S. officials maintain that an interim government selected through local caucuses, even if participation is limited, would create a far more representative and accountable group of Iraqis than the council, whose members were hand-picked by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq. The administration hoped that caucuses would allow new political talent to emerge and challenge the clique of former exiles who now effectively control the council.
The council's rejection of the caucuses is emerging as the most serious dispute between members and the occupation authority, placing the Bush administration in the awkward position of criticizing a group it formed last summer and touted as the "most representative governing body in Iraq's history."
"The Governing Council has been an effective body during this phase, but is it the appropriate body to hand over total sovereignty to?" a senior U.S. official said. "Is it sufficiently representative? Who is it accountable to? Will it be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people? Those are serious questions."
The council members said the caucus system is too controversial and laborious, particularly if elections were to be held by the end of the year. "If it's only for six months, it's not worth it," Yawar said.
The administration's plan calls for caucuses to be held in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. Fifteen-member selection committees, chosen by the Governing Council and local administrative councils, would screen participants.
"The caucus system seems to be so cumbersome and so hard to wrap your mind around that I'm not sure the idea has much legs anymore," said Feisal Istrabadi, a top aide to Adnan Pachachi, one of the council's five Sunni members.
Almost all council members had endorsed the caucus plan when it was proposed by Bremer in a private meeting on Nov. 15. But support among Shiites began to erode within weeks, after the country's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, rejected the plan as "illegitimate" and called for the interim government to be selected through direct elections before the June 30 handover of sovereignty.
U.S. officials contend it would be impossible to hold elections before June because Iraq lacks adequate security, an election law, voter rolls and polling equipment.
Even so, Sistani's demand -- and the resulting lack of Shiite political support -- stalled implementation of the caucus plan and led the Bush administration to invite a team of U.N. experts, led by former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, to determine whether early elections would be feasible. Brahimi and his team left Iraq over the weekend after spending a week meeting with political, religious and social leaders.
Brahimi indicated last week that he believed nationwide, direct elections could be held as soon as late this year, according to people who met with him. Although Shiite leaders would prefer elections to be held sooner and rival Sunni leaders want them to be held later, both sides appear to be willing to embrace the idea of elections at the end of the year, several Sunni and Shiite leaders said.
With expectations running high that Brahimi will support the idea of elections later this year or early next year, Sunni members have been backing away from the caucuses. Talabani, the Kurdish leader who hosted the Nov. 15 meeting in his palatial riverfront villa and had been a staunch supporter of the caucus proposal, said on Sunday that "elections are the best way to express the opinions of the Iraqi people."
Ahmed Chalabi, a moderate Shiite who has been a close ally of many in the Bush administration, also has rejected the caucus plan. He has called for elections before June. If that does not occur, an official of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress said, the organization would also support a handover of sovereignty to the Governing Council.
Daniel Senor, a spokesman for Bremer, said the occupation authority was "open to clarifications and elaborations to the process."
Anticipating a recommendation for year-end elections, senior U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington are frantically trying to assemble a set of contingency plans. Among the options they are considering is a radically revised version of the caucus proposal. They also are weighing whether to simply hand over sovereignty to the Governing Council, either in its present form or as an expanded body that may be regarded by Iraqis as more representative and legitimate. But expanding the council could prompt disputes between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds -- all of whom want to increase their share of seats.
"There are no good options for us," one American involved in the political transition said. "Every choice has deep flaws."
Asked about the possibility of transferring sovereignty to the council, Bremer said on Monday that he was looking at ways "to broaden the representation in the political process" but that he wants to see Brahimi's report before making any decisions.
Some council members contend the best option would be to expand the council and revamp its leadership structure, scrapping a system of nine rotating presidents for a sole prime minister.
"We're not ready to govern the country in our present shape," Yawar said. "But we can make ourselves ready." © 2004 The Washington Post Company