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Iraq opposition agrees blueprint
LONDON, England -- Opponents of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have agreed a political blueprint for the country's future, calling for a federal and tolerant Iraq in the event Saddam is ousted from power. After two days of talks in London, around 330 delegates representing six opposition groups recognised by the United States hammered out a final declaration on Sunday for a post-Saddam Iraq, CNN's Jim Bittermann reported. But the most important news on the composition of the 40-45 member leadership committee which could act as an interim administration is now expected at a news conference on Monday, Bittermann said. The final draft declaration vows to refuse foreign guardianship and occupation of Iraq if Saddam is toppled. It says Iraq's new government should be a federal democracy and Islam should remain as the state religion. Washington had modelled the London meeting on one staged in Germany a year ago to forge an interim government in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban government. Not all of the Iraqi opposition chose to take part. The extent to which the Iraqi delegates have support in their homeland is unclear. Saddam has dominated Iraq for 30 years and most of the delegates have been in exile for decades. The opposition is split, and includes the most pro-U.S. wing led by former banker Ahmad Chalabi and the Tehran-based Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which claims better organisation and more following inside Iraq. SCIRI and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and former members of Saddam's Ba'ath party have formed a loose alliance known as the Group of Four. The Four are opposed to the two remaining groups at the conference: the Iraqi National Congress, which is led by Chalabi, and a monarchist movement. "What you are seeing at this conference is parliamentary procedure in motion to come up with an authority ready to fill any vacuum in Iraq," Chalabi said. The conference came as U.S. President George W. Bush, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair as his closest ally, keeps up the pressure on Saddam to abide by U.N. resolutions and disclose alleged weapons of mass destruction. "We don't want war with Iraq. We want Saddam to comply with U.N. resolutions and we want freedom and liberty for the Iraqi people," Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's envoy for "free Iraqis" told Reuters Television News on the sidelines of the conference. "We hope war will be avoided. The ball in is in Mr Hussein's court," he said. Outside the conference around 150 Kurdish and Islamist demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing the delegates. "These self-appointed rulers cannot be trusted. They will continue the cycle of repression in Iraq," Bahram Soroush, one of the protesters told Reuters.
The meeting broke up on Sunday into committees to discuss working papers that include democracy, federalism and Kurdish claims to Kirkuk, a region in northern Iraq rich in oil. The Kurds lay claim to Kirkuk as part of an imprecise region they call Kurdistan. The two Kurdish parties taking part in the meeting have been running parts of northern Iraq since 1991. Earlier, delegates were told that Saddam's "days are numbered." At the London conference, all the participants agreed Saddam must go, with SCIRI's Hamid al-Bayati saying: "We think Saddam's days are numbered now and we will see very soon a free and democratic Iraq."
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