“It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body,” said Sawers

BAGHDAD, May 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Showing their true face, the United States and Britain decided to put the formation of an interim Iraqi government on the back burner, a leading U.S. newspaper reported Friday, May 16.

At a meeting headed by the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, and his British deputy John Sawers, the Anglo-American occupation authority told the leaders of the Iraqi opposition parties and exiles that they ‘prefer’ to remain in Iraq for an indefinite period of time, The New York Times said.

“It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body, because it will not have the strength or the resources to carry those responsibilities out,” Sawers argued.

“There was agreement that we should aim to have a national conference as soon as we reasonably could do so,” he said.

Sawers spoke of the need to complete the “tactical” measures of re-establishing legal and social institutions before vesting a government with sovereign control.

But one Iraqi political figure who attended the meeting said Iraqi opposition leaders expressed strong disappointment over the reversal.

The Iraqi, who requested anonymity, added that the decision also appeared to reflect apprehensions in the Bush administration, and more intensely in London, that the former Iraqi opposition forces are still a disparate group and that the Kurdish leaders as well have yet to coalesce into a ruling body, the Times added.

“I don't think they trust this group to function as a political leadership,” said the Iraqi political figure.

“And for us it is very difficult to participate in something that we have no control over. We don't want to be part of the blame committee when something goes wrong.”

Another Iraqi said the U.S. and British officials are only “desperate to get the oil pumping.”

‘Gone’

A third Iraqi said the U.S. and Britain do not practice what they preach, noting that “the provisional government idea is gone.”

As for the idea of convening a national assembly to select a government, he said, “there is no such thing anymore.”

“They retracted what they said before,” he stressed.

No date was set for creating an interim authority, and no details about its powers and functions were discussed in the meeting, the Iraqi complained.

Bremer only said he would meet with the opposition leaders for further discussions in two weeks, the added.

On April 28, the United States and Britain sponsored a political gathering of about 300 Iraqis and supported their call for a national conference to meet by the end of May to select a transitional government.

On May 5, Jay Garner, the civilian administrator who preceded Bremer, said the core of a new Iraqi government would emerge this month.

"Next week, or by the second weekend in May, you'll see the beginning of a nucleus of a temporary Iraqi government, a government with an Iraqi face on it that is totally dealing with the coalition," Garner claimed.

The new move comes as Bremer issued Friday an order banning up to 30,000 top-ranking members "from future employment in the public sector."