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Yikes.
from Yahoo! News
Iraqi Opposition Coalition Denounces U.S.
6.03.03
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s main opposition coalition on Tuesday denounced a new plan by the U.S.-led administration to delay the convening of a national assembly and election of Iraq's new government, and vowed to go ahead with the convention without American participation.
"The U.S. cannot cancel a conference led by Iraqis," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, which until April was a London-based exile organization.
In a major change of political plans, officials from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority announced Sunday that a new advisory group consisting of 25 to 30 prominent Iraqi political figures would be created to assist the country's administrators.
Originally, plans had called for U.S. administrators to press ahead with the convening of a conference of about 300 participants to draft a new constitution and elect an interim government to replace the ousted regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Last month, L. Paul Bremer, the head of the U.S. occupation authority, said the conference would probably not be convened until mid-July.
The suspension of those plans, which would leave Iraq under occupation rule indefinitely, has angered many former opposition leaders in Iraq.
Qanbar said the so-called Leadership Council — a group of Iraqi political leaders considered the possible core of a new government — had decided Monday to press ahead and convene a meeting of the national assembly.
"Yesterday, at the leadership meeting, it was reemphasized that the conference will go on," Qanbar told reporters at the INC's headquarters in Baghdad.
"The Leadership Council is unified around it," he said. "The national conference is an Iraqi-led effort. This is not an American issue."
The Leadership Council unites seven major Iraqi opposition groups — including two Kurdish parties and the Shiite Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It has previously cooperated closely with Bremer and his predecessor, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, in efforts to set up a broad-based meeting of all Iraqi political, ethnic and religious factions.
"I strongly believe that Mr. Bremer ... will not stand in the way of the Iraqi people to liberty and democracy," Qanbar said. |
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