Losing it 2
U.S. Losing Support of Key Iraqis
A threat by Governing Council members to quit in protest of tough military tactics may hurt coalition plans to hand over power June 30.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer
April 10, 2004
BAGHDAD — Tough U.S. tactics in Fallouja and Shiite Muslim cities of southern Iraq are driving a wedge between the Americans and their key supporter — the 25-member Governing Council that puts an Iraqi face on the occupation and is expected to serve as the basis of a new government.
One council member, angered by this week's heavy fighting in Fallouja and the prospect of a U.S. move against the militia of an anti-American Shiite cleric, suspended his membership Friday. Four others say they are ready to follow suit.
A sixth council member, Adnan Pachachi, a respected former diplomat who less than three months ago had accompanied First Lady Laura Bush to the president's State of the Union address, harshly criticized U.S. actions as "illegal and totally unacceptable."
From the beginning of the occupation, one of the biggest questions for U.S. authorities was how to create an indigenous leadership that would be acceptable to both the United States and the Iraqi people.
The Governing Council was a tenuous solution; many Iraqis accused its members of being little more than America's puppets.
But now even that backing seems on the verge of crumbling, undermining U.S. insistence that it has Iraqi support for its policies and leaving no one to hand power to, as the Bush administration insists it will, on June 30.
