Shape of Things to Come

UPI is reporting that the Interim Governing Council is considering the form of the Iraqi government to which sovereignty will be handed on June 30.

Previous plans had called for a more representative and expanded body, of 100 or more delegates, with more representation for tribal sheikhs and clerics who had been excluded from the 25-member body currently in place.

UPI reports that, instead, the IGC current thinking is to slim down to a 3-man presidency that will in turn appoint government ministers, presumably mainly from among the current IGC members. That is, the transitional government that will oversee Iraq until elections (scheduled for January 2005) will be no more representative than the current IGC, and power will be concentrated in even fewer hands. Corrupt figures like Ahmad Chalabi may well be in the 3-man presidency.

Such a transitional government will suffer from severe illegitimacy and unpopularity. There is also a danger that people like Chalabi will jerry-rig the election process.

Arnaud de Borchgrave speculates that the three presidents will be Adnan Pachachi, Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and Massoud Barzani, and that they will appoint Chalabi prime minister. He said everyone is afraid of Chalabi because the Pentagon allowed his militia to capture Iraqi intelligence documents that implicate lots of people in taking money from Saddam.

az-Zaman says that some rumors have Chalabi competing with Iyad Alawi for the prime ministership. But it says that its sources in the CPA and the Interim Governing Council assert that Alawi will be head of the national security council or of the interior minister (i.e. domestic intelligence).

Alawi, who has deep links to ex-Baathist officers, really should be kept away from internal security.