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Three months after the dramatic downfall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in war-torn Iraq, it remains a country without national government.
Before launching the war on March 20, US President George W. Bush whose country led the coalition forces to oust Saddam publicly pledged himself to make Iraq a "model democracy."
Up to now, however, to the dismay of the 25 million Iraqis, no practical steps have been taken to fulfill this US presidential pledge.
On the contrary, the American appointed head of the so-called Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer, citing UN Security Council Resolution 1483 passed last May which legitimized the US-led occupation of Iraq, dissolved what he called "all Iraqi entities" and appointed himself as the sole highest authority in a country of almost 7,000 years in history, which gave humanity its first legislation.
Such a step by Bremer angered the majority, if not all, of the Iraqi people who no longer feel under US occupation safe and have lost the sense of safety even inside their homes, a development, that infuriated the people and sent thousands upon thousands of them almost daily into streets demanding a speedy transfer of power to their own representatives.
Soon after Saddam's crumbling, Iraqis for a while hoped that a broad-based national government would soon come into power to fill the vacuum left over by Saddam, whose fate is still unknown and for whose head US last week offered US$25 million.
But observers believe that the US officials, fear that if elections were to be held so soon in Iraq, either a Baathist or an Iran-type Islamic government would come into power.
Both alternatives are unacceptable to the Americans who, according to the same observers, are bent on seeing oil-rich and strategically important Iraq have a western-oriented government.
The case being so, Bremer, the de facto ruler of Iraq, is maneuvering to retain real power in his hands as long as possible until he is able to de-bathing Iraq and clip the influence of Islamic clergy in a country whose people are Muslims.
The Baathists whom Bremer wants to purge had ruled Iraq single-handed for the past 35 years. Considering all those factors, Bremer's may well be an uphill task.
In a press conference held last Saturday in Baghdad, Bremer seemed to have changed his mind. He disclosed intention to appoint what he called a "government council" chosen among Iraqis.
Whatever the "council", most observers agree that the delay of power transfer to a national government will continue to fuel sentiments characterized by mass demonstrations, with almost daily reports of armed resistance against US-led coalition forces.
(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2003)
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