US Admits It Will Still Control Iraq After Transfer

The US has made clear that the transfer of sovereignty
to a provisional Iraqi government on 30 June will be a
limited affair, and that ultimate authority will reside
at a gigantic new US embassy in Baghdad and with the
military occupation force.

In sometimes heated hearings on Capitol Hill this week,
senior Bush administration officials admitted they did
not know who would be in the new government, precisely
what powers it would exercise, nor the exact shape of
the new Security Council resolution that Washington is
seeking at the United Nations.

Marc Grossman, Under-Secretary of State for political
affairs, said the government would put "a very important
Iraqi face" on many aspects of the country’s life. But
the US military, not the Iraqi security forces, would be
in charge of all security matters.

Asked what would happen if the temporary government
acted at variance with US foreign policy - such as by
seeking closer ties with Iran - Mr Grossman implied that
would not be tolerated. "That is why we want to have an
American ambassador in Iraq," he noted cryptically.

The limitations can only complicate US efforts to win a
fresh resolution at the UN, whose special envoy Lakhdar
Brahimi has been finalising the new government. Its main
task will be to prepare for elections next year, but
some Security Council members may now balk at conferring
UN legitimacyon a new Iraqi government whose powers are
so limited.

The admissions by Mr Grossman come as pressure is
intensifying on the Pentagon to bolster the US occupying
force, and amid evidence that the costs of the
occupation are rising even faster than the
administration predicted. General Richard Myers, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress
that military costs this year would run $4.7bn (£2.7bn)
ahead of estimates.

In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Senator
John McCain of Arizona, President Bush’s unsuccessful
rival for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination,
demanded the Pentagon send a division, roughly 15,000
men, to Iraq to reinforce the 135,000 US contingent
there.

The President had to make clear the size of the
commitment needed to prevail in Iraq, said Mr McCain, a
strong supporter of the March 2003 invasion. "He needs
to be perfectly frank: bringing peace and democracy to
Iraq is an enormous endeavour that will be very
expensive, difficult and long."

But more troops, coupled with what from 1 July will be
the largest US embassy worldwide, with some 3,000 staff,
will only underline how Washington will stay in charge,
whatever nominal sovereignty is handed over to Iraqis.
Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations committee, said: "On 1 July, Iraqis will wake
up and there’s going to be 160,000 troops and a US
ambassador pulling the strings. How does that take the
American face off the occupation?"

*Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, yesterday said
he could unleash suicide bombers if US forces attacked
the holy Shia city of Najaf, and called on the nation to
unite to expel Iraq’s occupiers. US troops are poised
just outside Najaf and have vowed to kill or capture
Sadr and destroy his Army of Mehdi militia, which has
clashed with foreign forces across southern and central
Iraq.

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