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Iraqis to hold post-war talks From the International Desk Published 4/15/2003 3:44 AM View printer-friendly version
With major combat now over and U.S. commanders starting to send home aircraft carriers and stealth bombers and fighters, the United States Tuesday was expected to take the first formal steps towards establishing a new government in Iraq.
Representatives of exiled oppositions groups were flown in to an airbase outside the southern city of Nasiriyah. The meeting was scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. local time, but there was no word that it had begun.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who played a similar role in setting up a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, will chair the meeting.
Retired U.S. Gen. Jay Garner will also attend. Garner has been appointed by the U.S. President George W. Bush to run post-war Iraq until an interim administration can take over.
But one of Iraq's main Shia Muslim groups, the Iranian-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, will not attend Tuesday's meeting, the BBC said.
Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, meanwhile, said he anticipated "that the major combat engagements are over because the major Iraqi units on the ground cease to show coherence."
Tikrit, the hometown of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, was the last place where coalition forces thought they might find sizeable units of his Republican Guard forces, he said.
At a Pentagon briefing, McChrystal told reporters, "We will move into a phase were it will be small, albeit sharp fights."
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters not to expect a declaration of victory.
McChrystal said the number of daily air missions had declined to 700 or 800 in recent days, down from about 1,000 or more a day. And Monday, he said, marked the last day that aircraft from all aircraft carriers would fly missions over Iraq.
The Pentagon also announced plans to scale back the U.S. Navy presence in the Persian Gulf by bringing home two carrier groups in the next few days.
The USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation could leave the region in the next several days, military officials said. Officials also said one of the two groups in the Red Sea, the USS Harry S. Truman or the USS Theodore Roosevelt, could depart soon.
When the Constellation returns to San Diego it will be for the last time. The aircraft carrier, which deployed in November as part of a scheduled rotation in the Persian Gulf, is scheduled to be decommissioned.
The Kitty Hawk, which arrived in the region in February, will head back to its homeport in Yokosuka, Japan.
With the war in Iraq entering its final stages, most of the Australian troops are expected to come home soon, Defense Minister Robert Hill said.
At the same time, the government has committed to send a team of 12 specialists next week to Iraq to help search for weapons of mass destruction. Hill said there are hundreds of sites to be searched.
"The special forces and the F/A Hornets and their crews, we hope will be able to return to Australia in the not-too-distant future," Hill told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "It's our objective to get them back as soon as reasonably possible."
HMAS Sydney is on its way to the region to replace the HMAS Darwin and HMAS Anzac, which have nearly completed their six month assignment.
Meanwhile, the French daily Le Monde reported Tuesday that Maher Sufyan, commander of the Republican Guard reached an agreement with U.S. forces in which he ordered his forces to surrender in exchange for his transfer to an undisclosed safe haven.
The newspaper said Sufyan ordered all his forces to lay down their arms and go home. Shortly thereafter a U.S. helicopter escorted Sufyan from the Al Rashid camp, east of Baghdad, to an unknown location.
Sufyan is not included on the infamous "deck of cards" created by U.S. defense officials to highlight the most wanted individuals from Saddam's government.
In other developments Tuesday:
-- Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said United States diplomatic pressure on Syria does not mean another war is looming. The Bush administration has accused Syria of developing chemical weapons and has warned it not to harbor Saddam loyalists. Downer said the U.S. is annoyed with Syria, but that does not mean conflict is on the horizon.
-- Georgia's support of U.S. military operations in Iraq has been rewarded with aid to the country, President Eduard Shevardnadze told Georgian television. Shevardnadze said the U.S. Congress has approved $78 million in aid to Georgia.
-- U.S. military officials said order is gradually being restored to Iraqi cities after days of looting following the collapse of Saddam's regime; joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols have begun work in Baghdad.
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(Reported by Pamela Hess at the Pentagon, Nicholas M. Horrock and Ghassan al-Kadi in Baghdad; Richard Tomkins with the 5th Marines; William Reilly at the United Nations and Kathy Gambrell at the White House.)
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