Meeting endorses 'federal democracy' for Iraq

11.45am

TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq - The United States and Britain began talks with Iraqi factions today, urging them to work together to build a democracy, while Pentagon officials warned the guerrilla war in Iraq is far from over even as the military campaign wound down.

The religious and political leaders, who met at a makeshift US air base beside the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, agreed to meet again in 10 days, according to a statement published on the website of the US Central Command.

A 13-point statement approved by consensus, according to one group that attended, advocated a federal democracy and the dissolution of Saddam Hussein's once-feared Baath party.

While organised resistance from Iraqi forces has largely collapsed, US and British soldiers are still encountering "small pockets of resistance", a US defence official said.

"There are still hazards lingering throughout the country of Iraq," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told a briefing in Qatar.

The Pentagon official estimated that more than 1,000 and fewer than 10,000 irregular Iraqi and foreign fighters were still operating inside Iraq, including elements of the Fedayeen Saddam force loyal to Saddam's son, Uday.

In a major psychological victory in the war on terror, Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of an Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, was captured by US special forces and is in US custody in Baghdad, a US official said.

Abbas, also known as Mohammed Abbas, is the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, which hijacked the Achille Lauro and killed a disabled elderly American man, Leon Klinghoffer.

Abbas had spent most of the past 17 years in Iraq. He had been sentenced in Italy to five life terms in prison in absentia, and is wanted in the United States in connection with the hijacking.

Speaking in Washington, President George W. Bush suggested the role of US forces in Iraq is evolving from that of "liberators" to that of humanitarian, peacekeeping forces:

"As we press on to liberate every corner of Iraq, we are beginning the difficult work of helping Iraqis to build a free and stable country," he said. "The immediate tasks involve establishing order, as well as delivering food and water, and medicines."

Bush spoke on Tuesday with French President Jacques Chirac. In their first conversation in over two months, Chirac said France wanted to play a "pragmatic" role in rebuilding Iraq, according to his spokeswoman, Catherine Colonna.

Chirac, a leading critic of Washington's plans for military action against Iraq, "also told him France welcomed the brevity of the war and, like all other democracies, welcomed the fall of the Iraqi dictatorship," Colonna said.

The Ur meeting, which spurred protests in the nearby town of Nassiriya by crowds denouncing any form of American rule, raised as many questions as answers in a country split along ethnic, religious and political lines.

The talks took place with the United States insisting that the looting and lawlessness that marked the first days after Saddam's overthrow on Wednesday were subsiding.

In Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, US and British troops worked alongside local police to restore order on the streets after the 26-day war that ousted Saddam. Troops remained wary, however, of attacks by die-hard Saddam loyalists.

While electricity was still out in the capital, a row of barber-shops lifted their shutters, red double-decker buses started plying routes that were virtually empty a few days ago and several street-side cafes filled up with customers.

With the conventional war winding down, Brooks devoted much of his briefing on Tuesday to "feel good" pictures of Iraqis smiling and shaking hands with Americans delivering food, water and medical supplies.

Still, Brooks was reluctant to declare the war over.

"We still have individuals, regime death squads, we still have 80 suicide vests unaccounted for ... and there's still a military hazard that exists," he said. US Marines found more than 300 vests packed with explosives and ball bearings in Baghdad on Sunday, US military officials said.

No US 'war plan' for Syria

Saddam and his sons, Uday and Qusay, have disappeared, as have most of his aides. Only two out of 55 officials on a US "most wanted" list have so far been caught.

The search for Saddam and his associates has helped turn Washington's attention to neighbouring Syria, which it has called a "rogue nation" and accused of harboring remnants of Saddam's regime and assisting Baghdad's war effort.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has also accused Damascus of testing chemical weapons in the last 12 to 15 months.

He said US military forces had shut off a pipeline taking "illegal oil" from Iraq to Syria. Oil industry sources say Iraq and Syria were violating UN sanctions by exporting 100,000 to 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil in the pipeline.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned of diplomatic or economic sanctions, but said on Tuesday the United States had no "war plan" to attack Syria, Iran or other nations.

A statement by Syria's cabinet branded the US charges against it as "threats and falsifications," said they had been made for the benefit of Israel and demanded an end to the "American-British occupation of Iraq."

"We want you to establish your own democratic system based on Iraqi traditions and values," President Bush's special envoy on the region, Zalmay Khalilzad, said. "I urge you to take this opportunity to co-operate with each other."

But events surrounding the meeting, which was boycotted by a major Iran-based Shi'ite Muslim group, served notice that ruling postwar Iraq will not be easy.

"We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general," said a spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, explaining its boycott.

Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi businessman favoured by the Pentagon for a role in Iraq, sent a representative to Ur and held talks with retired general Jay Garner, who Bush has put in charge of the interim government, on the eve of the meeting.

The start of the meeting was delayed for unexplained reasons and thousands of Iraqis protested in Nassiriya, saying they wanted to rule themselves and making clear they opposed rule by the United States as much as rule by Saddam.

"No to America, No to Saddam," they chanted.

About 80 Iraqis, including radical and mainstream Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim, Kurdish and monarchist groups, attended the talks near Ur, 380km south of Baghdad.

The statement rejected political violence, meted out by Saddam to silence opponents or potential rivals. It said Iraqis must choose their own leaders, not have them imposed from outside. Little else was agreed except that the delegates should reconvene in 10 days at a location yet to be decided.

Garner's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) says it wants to hand over to an Iraqi government after a matter of months.

Devastated by wars and sanctions and strategically located between the Arab world, Iran and Turkey, Iraq has the world's second-largest proven oil reserves. Western firms are looking hungrily at reconstruction contracts.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war