Police station blast mars first meeting of Iraqi council

By PATRICK COCKBURN

A governing council of Iraqis was inaugurated yesterday in Baghdad in a United States effort to gain local support in controlling Iraq.

The 25 members of the body were drawn from different communities.

The US, whose soldiers have come under increasing guerrilla attack, hoped the council would be able to re-establish law and order.

But as the council met, a blast outside a police station in a Baghdad suburb sometimes visited by US soldiers killed at least one person.



Washington had wanted to limit the governing council to an advisory role until about three weeks ago when it became clear that armed resistance to the occupation was increasing and the economy was largely paralysed.

It hoped the council would be able to re-establish the police force and government ministries, something the Coalition Provisional Authority has been unable to do.

The first act of the council was to declare April 9 - the day Saddam was officially overthrown - as a national holiday. It will elect a leadership of the council today.

The council, which met in a heavily guarded US enclave in the capital, will be able to appoint ministers and have other powers, but Paul Bremer, the chief US official in Iraq, will keep overall control.

As the members were introduced to the world at the Baghdad Convention Center, Bremer stood and applauded from the front row. But he made no comment, a move designed to lower the American profile.

Council member Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, said he did not expect Bremer to veto council decisions and believed negotiations would settle all disputes.

Still to be seen is whether the council can convince the Iraqi people that it represents them.

The danger is that the council may be seen by Iraqis as a pawn of America. The council is intended to represent the different ethnic, religious and political communities in Iraq. It contains 13 Shia Muslims, five Kurds, five Sunni Muslims, one Christian and one Turkoman.

An assembly will be established this year to draw up a constitution under which a new election could be held. The strongest group represented on the council will be the Kurdish parties - the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

But the other political parties, such as the US-backed Iraqi National Congress, have yet to prove that they have widespread support. Iraqi police and administrators may find it easier to take orders from the new council rather than work directly with the American occupation authorities.

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Herald Feature: Iraq