New Website and Thousands of Iraqi Shiites Protest against Jay Garner

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StopJayGarner.com is an international coalition advocating for the United Nations - not weapons maker Jay Garner.The website was co-founded by Global Exchange, one of North America's most respected and effective human rights groups

Tue, Apr 15, 2003

Thousands of Iraqi Shiites marched Tuesday through the streets of Nasiriyah to protest the U.S.-sponsored conference held outside the city. Organizers said the meeting did not represent their interests. Marchers chanted "No to America and no to Saddam!"

The protesters held banners written in English and Arabic saying the "Hawza," or the Shiite religious seminary in Najaf, represents them.

Even some of those attending the meeting said they did not want Garner leading the interim administration.

"We will press for any Iraqi civilian administration regardless of what the American say. An administration by Garner is not acceptable," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, an Iraqi physician and opposition activist..."..."

"...The U.S.-led interim administration could begin handing power back to Iraqi officials within three to six months, but forming a government will take longer, said Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the top British member of Garner's team.

"Will we get a complete government in place in that time? I doubt it," Cross said. "One has to go through the process of building from the bottom up, allowing the leadership to establish itself, and then the election process to go through and so forth. That full electoral process may well take longer."

Garner's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is charged with coordinating humanitarian assistance, rebuilding infrastructure shattered by years of war and U.N. sanctions, and gradually handing back power to Iraqis leading a democratically elected government.

Tuesday's meeting is the first step toward that goal after the ouster of Saddam.

About 100 Iraqis were expected at Tuesday's meeting, half from inside Iraq, half exiles. The moderator was Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House envoy to Iraq. Garner was also expected, along with representatives from Britain, Australia and Poland — countries that contributed forces to the coalition.

Wilkinson stressed that the meeting was an "unscripted, free-flowing forum of ideas" designed to get Iraqis talking about what they want for the future.

There are already tensions between the United States and some of the Iraqi factions.

Kurdish groups appear unwilling to compromise on their demand to expand the border of their autonomous area to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and the Kurdish parts of Mosul.

That could pose a problem for the United States, because Turkey worries that Kurdish control of Kirkuk could lead one day to aspirations for independence, which could also encourage separatist Kurds in Turkey.

Iraqi opposition leaders, meanwhile, fear the U.S. administration is using the meeting to try to force Ahmed Chalabi, head of the London-based umbrella Iraqi National Congress, on them as a leader of a new Iraqi administration.

Chalabi was the first top Iraqi opposition leader to be airlifted by the U.S. military into southern Iraq as the fighting wound down. U.S. officials said he was brought in because he offered forces to the coalition.

Neither Chalabi nor many other leaders of anti-Saddam groups are expected to attend: lower-level delegates are expected.

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printed from New Website and Thousands of Iraqi Shiites Protest against Jay Garner on 2004-06-04 02:14:18