Mahmoud Uthman: IGC too Weak to be given Sovereignty

In an interview with ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Kurdish Interim Governing Council (IGC) member Mahmoud Uthman (Osman) said that a national congress should be held to elect a transitional parliament, He said that sovereignty should not be handed to the existing IGC because it is weak and lacks unity. He blamed the Coalition Provisional Authority, which has the real decision-making powers, for the weakness of the IGC, saying it had been reduced to an advisory council. He complained that the UN Security Council had erred grievously in allowing one country to rule another directly in the 21st century, quite apart from the good deed the US did in removing Saddam.

Uthman imagines a national congress meeting late this spring, composed of tribal leaders, party heads, clerics, and other notables, who might be able to elect a government that then had some legitimacy. His proposal sounded to me rather like the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan that produced the Karzai government. It did to his interview, Shirzad Shaikhani, as well, and Shaikhani asked Uthman if he meant a sort of Loya Jirga. Uthman replied "To some extent.".