For new Iraqi leaders, hard work begins now

By Ken Dilanian and Hannah Allam
Knight Ridder Newspapers

U.S. AIR FORCE / GETTY IMAGES L. Paul Bremer, right, and Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh bid each other farewell yesterday.

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Related stories On Day 1, a new Iraq emerges News brings out hopes, skepticism On Bremer's last day, he springs a surprise Note breaks news to Bush at summit Stealth handover stymies journalists

Nearly 160,000 foreign troops — including 138,000 Americans — will remain in the country as the guarantors of security, and about 150 U.S., British and other Western advisers and supervisors will remain scattered among the government's ministries.

Allawi's toughest task may be convincing his fellow citizens that he and his government, not the Americans, are in charge.

If he can do that, U.S. and Iraqi officials believe, more Iraqis will turn against the Saddam Hussein diehards, foreign terrorists and Islamic militants who are attacking foreigners and their Iraqi allies.

Quelling the violence, they believe, will bolster the new government's authority and give it a chance to begin solving Iraq's economic problems, which will bring Allawi greater public support and pave the way for elections for a democratic government in January.

The insurgents, however, are expected to try to assassinate Allawi and other members of his government and, failing that, highlight his dependence on the United States, discredit the fledgling Iraqi security forces and fuel greater public frustration with the lack of security.

Rebirth of a nation Interim prime minister vows to restore order and hints he may impose martial law. Government's long-term role is to steer the country toward free elections by the end of January. U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, arrives in Baghdad hours after early handover.

Yesterday, though, was at least a moment of celebration for interim officials, the United States and some Iraqis. "This is a historical day ... a day that all Iraqis have been looking forward to," Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer said during a hastily arranged, five-minute handover ceremony that came two days ahead of schedule to foil any insurgent plans to mar the transfer of power with attacks.

"This is a day we are going to take our country back into the international forum," al-Yawer said.

Baghdad resident Mohammed Sadeq, 23, a laborer who had stopped at a roadside melon stand, voiced pleasure at the shift: "This is what we all need. Iraqis understand each other better than Americans."

At a NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey, President Bush said: "The Iraqi people have their country back."

John Negroponte, 64, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, arrived in Baghdad last night to take over political contact between Washington and the interim government.

The former U.S. envoy to the United Nations reached the Iraqi capital hours after L. Paul Bremer, the top civilian administrator of the U.S.-led occupation, left.

U.S. plans call for a U.S. Embassy that probably will be the largest in the world, with some 1,000 Americans assisted by hundreds of Iraqis.

Occupation officials said that despite the security setbacks — 630 U.S. service members have died in combat and thousands of Iraqi police and civilians also have died — they'd laid the groundwork for Iraq to become an economically vibrant, pluralistic democracy.

They pointed out that they established a new currency and banking system, passed laws to promote foreign investment, set up hundreds of local councils and had begun renovating huge swaths of infrastructure.

Still, Allawi, a former agent of U.S. and British intelligence services who spent years in exile plotting unsuccessfully to overthrow Saddam, is inheriting a California-size nation of 26 million people that's wracked by ethnic tension, short of basic services and under threat from an insurgent movement that seems to be improving its tactics.

Allawi yesterday vowed to restore order and hinted that he may impose martial law. But he is restricted by Iraq's temporary constitution, which includes civil-rights guarantees. His caretaker government's long-term role is to steer the country toward free elections by the end of January.

The power transfer means that Allawi and his 33-member Cabinet control the government and its ministries, which employ more than 1 million people and reach all levels of society. To support its authority, the interim government will have to call on what by all accounts are undertrained, poorly equipped security forces. A U.S. general remains in charge of training the new Iraqi army.

The foreign troops will continue to conduct patrols and raids in search of insurgents, closing roads, stopping cars and breaking down doors when they deem it necessary, sometimes without consulting Iraqi authorities.

Yet to many in this proud country, the restoration of sovereignty is an important step. "There is a big difference between yesterday and today," said Mowaffak Rubaie, Allawi's national-security adviser.

"There is a difference between an occupied country with an occupying army ... and a free country with full sovereignty."

The United States will continue to play a dominant role in reconstruction, mainly because it controls the bulk of the available money, the $18.4 billion congressional appropriation that's now being billed as a gift from the United States to the people of Iraq.

The Pentagon-run Program Management Office, which is in charge of the money, has awarded contracts to oversee the work mainly to large U.S.-based firms.

There were no immediate reports of violence or threats linked to the power transfer yesterday, which was an unusually quiet day for postwar Iraq. Not all was peaceful, but in postwar Iraq, it rarely is.

In the southern city of Basra, a bomb killed a British soldier and wounded two others, but there was no indication the explosion was tied to the handover. And Al-Jazeera TV said today that Iraqi militants killed a captive U.S. soldier because the U.S. government didn't change its policy in Iraq.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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