Our Man in Baghdad

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Q: I want to start by asking the political situation in Iraq — about your efforts to shepherd Iraqi politicians towards a national-unity government. There's been a lot of dissonance recently; what we're hearing from the Iraqi politicians, in the public sphere, doesn't allow for much confidence that such a government is possible. If anything, since the events of Samarra, they seem to be farther away. I want to get a sense of what you feel, what has changed since Samarra and how that has affected your efforts?

A: The basic problem of Iraq right now is ethnic and sectarian rivalry and competition. And there is a continuing effort on the part of the terrorists — in particular, the Zarkawi group — to pro-voke civil war. The attacks on Samarra pushed the country in that direction. But I think the Iraqi leaders decided not to go that way and stopped rather than move towards a civil war further. The effort by the terrorists to provoke a civil war continues. But the answer to the challenge of Iraq, given the ethnic and sectarian rivalry, is the establishment of a national-unity government. The Iraqi leaders generally have agreed to this.

The Samarra attack delayed [this effort]. The focus became crisis management and discouraging people from going towards civil war. Now the focus is back to the formation of a government.

If I could take a minute, I'd like to discuss what a national-unity government would mean. What are the forces that should constitute this government? On that, there is broad agreement —not unanimous, but broad agreement — that it should be formed from the Shi'ite alliance, the Kurdish alliance, the Sunni Arab alliance and across sectarian groups, [the secular block] led by Iyad Allawi. The second issue is that there has to be a process for decision-making in which these forces could participate and that's important for a variety of reasons. There is a strong polarization along ethnic and sectarian lines that indicates a lack of trust across these groups. If, in the Iraqi government, there is a place where decisions are being coordinated and where the representatives of these groups are all there, where there's transparency — that would help to build bridges of confidence.

And there are several areas under discussion. One is that there should be a sort of coordinating National Security Council that will bring the key four elements—the presidency, the prime minister, the deputy, the speaker, and the leader of the courts. Plus, representatives from other blocs that form the government but don't hold one of these positions. This council would coordinate policies.

The other idea is that the government ministries should be categorized into baskets — a basket of security, a basket of finance and oil, and a basket of services — and all the political blocks will be represented in each of these baskets. That doesn't mean that the political forces have to be represented equally — there was an election, and the result of the election has to reflect itself in the formation of the government — but there will have to be representation.

The third element is a common program. You don't want a government where two ministries run according to policies of Sunni Arabs, three according to the policies of the Shi'ites, and so on. So there has to be a program that allows for governing from the center.

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