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Iraq congress threatens act without us Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/141/nation/Iraqi_congress_threatens_to_act_without_US+.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/141/nation/Iraqi_congress_threatens_to_act_without_US+.shtml
TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT
Iraqi congress threatens to act without US
By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, 5/21/2003
BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi National Congress sharply criticized the United States yesterday for delays in forming a transitional government to run the country.
Entifadh Qanbar, the chief spokesman for the group, said at a news conference that the congress would try to establish an interim government within a few weeks, regardless of whether the United States supported such an effort. The congress is one of several groups that attempted to orchestrate opposition to Saddam Hussein from outside Iraq before he was overthrown.
''It is not up to the Americans to delay this [interim] government,'' Qanbar said. ''This is a sovereign issue of Iraqis. We are allies of the United States. We do not take orders from the United States. . . . We are going forward in our plans'' for a meeting of representatives of all major Iraqi parties by the end of this month to form a government.
There appears to be little support for the initiative, however. All of the leading parties are in favor of forming an interim government as quickly as is practically possible, but they continue to negotiate with one another and the Americans. On Sunday, L. Paul Bremer, the new American civil administrator of Iraq, denied that the United States had suspended the transition process.
Many Iraqis say they do not trust the Iraqi National Congress leader, Ahmad Chalabi, who has been charged with bank fraud in Jordan. They say that Chalabi is pushing harder than anyone else for speedy formation of the interim government because it would maximize his group's representation, and that the more time passes, the more it will be clear that he has little public support.
In other developments, the US military confirmed that four Marines on a resupply mission were killed when their Ch-46 Sea-Knight helicopter crashed Monday into a canal in central Iraq, and a fifth drowned trying to save them. The cause was under investigation, and the identities of those killed were not released.
Also, the Associated Press reported that the United States is inviting a group of international specialists to inspect two mobile labs suspected of being used by Iraq as biological weapons facilities. Although the laboratories do not represent proof that Iraq had biological weapons, US officials believe their only purpose was for making such weapons.
At the news conference yesterday, Qanbar criticized the international community for failing to send forensic teams and provide security around the mass graves of victims of the Hussein regime, and said 14 additional grave sites have been uncovered in the past week.
''They have been found all over Iraq,'' he said. ''Unfortunately, many more are to come. This is a crime scene. A crime scene has to be protected and controlled.'' Discovery of the graves, he said, ''constitutes complete vindication of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair's decision to liberate Iraqis from Saddam.''
Bremer said last week at his first news conference that the United States offered to provide security at some of the grave sites but that local organizations declined and placed armed Iraqis around the sites.
He and other US officials have made clear that they have no intention of stopping grieving Iraqis searching for the remains of relatives from reaching the burial pits.
Bremer said a Pentagon team with expertise in preserving mass graves for possible prosecution of crimes against humanity was due in the country late last week, but whether the team arrived could not be determined yesterday.
Public security in and around Baghdad continues to be shaky, with daily reports in the Iraqi press about murders, rapes, and carjackings. But there also are signs that the heightened US military presence on the streets is having an effect.
Troops are confiscating and carting away tons of weapons and ammunition held by Iraqi civilians and former soldiers.
And when a cache of unexploded ordnance from the war detonated yesterday in western Baghdad, US troops and Iraqi firefighters quickly controlled the resulting blaze.
This story ran on page A18 of the Boston Globe on 5/21/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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