White House hopes to strike new bargain with UN over Iraq

By DAVID USBORNE

NEW YORK - The White House is hoping to strike a new bargain with the United Nations over Iraq.

Under it, the world body would be given full control of the country's political transition so long as the Security Council adopts a new resolution that simultaneously approves the continuing American command of the coalition forces there.

It is not yet clear, however, whether key members of the Council that were opposed to the war in Iraq in the first place - notably France, Germany and Russia - are yet willing to accept such a deal.

Sources say it will be at least another month before any such resolution could be ready for a vote.

Pivotal to this latest diplomatic dance is Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy to Iraq, who has spent the last ten days exploring with leaders of different Iraqi factions in Baghdad the best way forward to establishing a caretaker government before 30 June, when sovereignty will be handed back.

Mr Brahimi is reported to favour nominating an interim government of up to twelve senior ministers, a prime minister and a presidency of three prominent Iraqis.

Additionally, he is said to favour holding a grand conference in Iraq after 30 June to elect an advisory council to the government.

This is a departure from the formula favoured hitherto by Washington, which envisaged expanding the existing Iraqi Governing Council and making it the new government.

The IGC, the members of which were selected by the Americans, has been seen to lose much of its credibility in recent weeks, however.

In an important about-face by the US, senior officials in Washington are now signalling a readiness to accept the alternative plan from Mr Brahimi, who would himself pick the new government members.

This appears to be an acknowledgment that ordinary Iraqis are more likely to embrace a government that does not have the fingerprints of the United States all over it.

The US support for Mr Brahimi has been voiced by Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, and the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell. "I don't see anything at this point that would be of concern to us," Ms Rice said, adding that Mr Brahimi's mission has "thus far been very successful".

Mr Powell suggested that Mr Brahimi's plan showed some "very, very good thinking".

The full details of his plan are not expected to be aired publicly until later this month though, and many questions remain unanswered. Among them are who exactly he envisages placing in the government - some members of the IGC could be included - and, perhaps more importantly, what the relationship will be between the new government and the forces that will be under Pentagon command.

A senior Security Council source said that it was too soon to predict whether the kind of resolution envisaged by Washington can be reached. "It makes no sense to have a resolution now without all the information on the interim government," he said.

"We need to know exactly how the plan can be implemented and if it will be acceptable to the Iraqis. Then we will see if we can have a resolution." The same source did not express surprise that the Americans were changing tack to support the Brahimi approach. "It would be very badly advised to overrule him at this point," he argued.

In recent days, Russia and Germany have both been voicing caution about a new agreement in the Council. The deputy Russian ambassador in New York said the Council needed to think of something "more substantial" to change the equation of occupation in Iraq and return stability to it.

Nobody in New York, meanwhile, doubts the main motive of Washington in searching for a new resolution - to create conditions under which more countries would be willing to contribute troops to the coalition force and ease the burden on US soldiers.

Germany's ambassador, Gunter Pleuger said this week that his country was doubtful that sending more soldiers to Iraq was the proper solution.

A US official acknowledged that the idea behind the new resolution is "giving a political boost to coalition and would-be coalition members to encourage them politically to come forward and participate." Kofi Annan, the Secretary General, this week also conceded that there is nothing certain about how the Council will react. "The Council members are discussing among themselves the possibility of a new Iraq resolution. The question is when and its contents," he told reporters.

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