Iraq sovereignty handover seen as largely symbolic

1.00pm - By ARSHAD MOHAMMED

WASHINGTON - Iraq will have no control over its troops and very limited say over its immediate future when the United States formally hands over sovereignty in June, analysts said.

President Bush yesterday reaffirmed his commitment to the transfer of sovereignty on June 30 to a still-undefined Iraqi authority, painting a picture of Iraqis increasingly in charge of their own fate.

"On June 30th, when the flag of free Iraq is raised, Iraqi officials will assume full responsibility for the ministries of government," Bush said in a prime-time news conference called to defend his Iraq policy after a week of bloody violence.

But he made clear US forces in the country -- 135,000 at present -- will stay and Secretary of State Colin Powell last week said the United States hoped to reach agreements to keep Iraqi security forces under their command.

"We have fenced off one of the primary responsibilities of a sovereign government," Richard Murphy, a Council on Foreign Relations analyst and former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said of the desire to keep Iraqi forces under US command.

The United States now rules Iraq through the Coalition Provisional Authority and will retain enormous influence through an embassy with some 3000 people it plans to establish in Baghdad.

Analysts said it was inevitable Washington would insist on control of Iraqi forces, some of which have refused to fight in the fierce clashes over the past week, if only to ensure that US forces and their Iraqi allies do not shoot one another.

But it is also the most obvious example of how Iraq is unlikely to exercise full sovereignty come July 1.

"You can't really have an independent government going out there and doing things that are going to have to be supported by our military, whether that means for example closing down a mosque or a newspaper," said Edward Walker, a former US ambassador to Egypt and Israel. "I don't see how we could expose our troops to decisions that are not in our control."

James Dobbins, a Rand Corporation analyst who has served as US special envoy for Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia, said the main constraints on the new Iraqi authority would be its own capacity to govern.

"The government is going to be weak. It's going to be inexperienced. It's going to be divided. It's going to be reliant on a bureaucracy with quite limited capability," he said. "June 30 ... is a date that's important for symbolic reasons.
"But it doesn't mean the Iraqi political establishment is more united on July 1 than on June 30. It doesn't mean the Iraqi security forces are stronger on July 1 than on June 30. It simply means you've taken another step toward the day when Iraq is indeed capable of fully exercising its sovereignty."

Dobbins also said he expected "intensified violence" in Iraq after the handover as insurgents "test the new system, find its limits ... and see how far they can push."

Walker, now president of the Middle East Institute think tank, said the size of the planned US embassy -- expected to be led by US ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte -- hinted at Washington's role.

"What are all those people going to be doing? They are going to be all over the governing processes," he said.

When its plan for caucuses to choose the new government was killed by objections from a leading Shi'ite cleric, Washington turned to UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to devise an alternative.

While the shape of the new government is still undecided, Brahimi said he favored a president and two vice presidents to reflect the Iraq's basic Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish make-up alongside a Cabinet of ministers led by a prime minister.

Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University and a critic of the Bush administration, said the handover was illusory and that security was the most important issue and clearly would not be in Iraqi hands.

"Sovereign power will be in the hands of the only military force in the country, which is the United States," he said. "It is ludicrous ... to talk about a transfer of sovereignty."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq