BAGHDAD, 14 July 2003 — A governing council seen as a crucial step on Iraq’s road to democracy met for the first time yesterday and immediately abolished all holidays honoring Saddam Hussein.
The 25-member interim council, backed by the US, can appoint ministers, approve the national budget and review laws, although ultimate authority remains with the occupying powers that have ruled Iraq since US-led forces toppled Saddam on April 9. Its first decisions were to scrap all holidays honoring Saddam and his outlawed Baath Party and to create a new public holiday marking the day of his downfall.
“Saddam has been tossed into the rubbish bin of history and will not be coming back,” said Mohammad Bahr Al-Uloom, drawing applause at a press conference. Many of the Shiite cleric’s relatives were killed by Saddam’s government.
As the council met in a government building in Baghdad, the US military said it had launched “Operation Ivy Serpent” to prevent militants staging anti-American attacks on upcoming anniversaries linked to Saddam and the Baath Party.
The council faces a challenge to convince ordinary Iraqis it can represent them, though it does roughly reflect Iraq’s religious and ethnic composition, giving Shiite Muslims a majority in contrast to their marginalization under Saddam.
On the streets of Baghdad, initial reaction was skeptical. Some felt the council had too many former exiles, while others feared the body was just a tool of the United States.
“We cannot back the council. It is backed by America and it won’t change anything. America has just made empty promises,” said Sabah Kathim, an ice-seller who earns three dollars a day.
The new council is composed of 13 Shiites, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, an Assyrian Christian and a Turkmen. Three members are women and 16 have either returned from exile or were in an autonomous Kurdish area outside Saddam’s control.
Iraq’s US-led administration sees the formation of the council as a first step on the road to democracy for Iraq. Further ahead lie the drafting of a new constitution, to be approved by a referendum, and finally free elections.
“The launch of the governing council will mean that Iraqis play a more central role in running their country,” US administrator Paul Bremer said in a statement on Saturday. Washington hopes daily attacks on US troops in mainly Sunni central Iraq will decline if Iraqis feel US and British occupiers are empowering local leaders.
The attacks have dented support for President George W. Bush. A Newsweek magazine poll on Saturday showed popular backing for his handling of military operations in Iraq falling to 53 percent in July from 65 percent at the end of May. The latest military operation, launched on Saturday night, is the fourth conducted by the US military since the toppling of Saddam to crack down on armed resistance to the occupation.
“Operation Ivy Serpent is a pre-emptive strike that aggressively focuses on non-compliant forces and former regime leaders,” a military spokesman said.
US officers say they have intelligence that assailants are planning attacks to coincide with anniversaries including a July 14 coup in 1958 against a British-backed monarchy, Saddam assuming the presidency on July 16, 1979, and a revolution staged by his Baath Party on July 17, 1968.
In an incident reflecting the continuing instability in Iraq, one Iraqi policeman was killed and four were wounded yesterday in Baghdad when they tried to help US forces that had come under fire at a checkpoint, a military spokesman said.
— Additional input from Agencies
