UN Security Council endorses plan to transfer Iraq sovereignty
UNITED NATIONS -- The UN Security Council gave resounding approval yesterday to a resolution endorsing the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's new government by the end of this month.
The unanimous 15-0 vote followed a last-minute compromise that allowed France and Germany to drop their objections to the US-British resolution, which underwent four revisions over weeks of tough negotiations. Diplomats on the council, which was deeply divided over the war, welcomed the Americans' flexibility.
The compromise gives Iraqi leaders control over the activities of their own fledgling security forces and a say on "sensitive offensive operations" by the US-led multinational force -- such as the controversial siege of Fallujah. But the measure stops short of granting the Iraqis a veto over major US-led military operations.
The resolution spells out the powers and the limitations of the new interim Iraqi government that will assume power on June 30. It authorizes the multinational force to remain in Iraq to help ensure security but gives the Iraqi government the right to ask the force to leave at any time.
While President Bush cheered the vote, his administration lowered expectations of gaining other countries' military support -- one of the original hopes behind the resolution. Four members of the Group of Eight -- France, Germany, Russia, and Canada -- have said they won't send troops to take the burden off the 138,000 American soldiers and 24,000 troops from coalition partners in Iraq.
Nevertheless, the adoption of the resolution will likely buy time for the new Iraqi government, boosting its stature as it struggles to win acceptance and cope with a security crisis at home.
The interim government -- put together by a UN envoy, the Americans, and their Iraqi allies -- hopes the vote will give it a legitimacy that eluded its predecessor, the US-appointed Governing Council. That would put it in a better position to gain support among fellow Arab regimes and seek economic help from abroad.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari of Iraq, speaking in New York at the Council on Foreign Relations, predicted it would have a "positive impact" by removing the perception of the US-led l force as an occupying power.
Although the resolution says the interim government will have authority to ask the force to leave, new Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of Iraq indicated in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that the force will remain at least until an elected transitional government takes power early next year.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier of France said many French ideas were incorporated in the final text, though Paris would have liked a clearer definition of the relationship between the new Iraqi government and the US-led force.
"That doesn't stop us from a positive vote in New York to help in a constructive way find a positive exit to this tragedy," he told France-Inter radio.
President Ghazi al-Yawer of Iraq, meeting in Washington with Powell, brushed off any suggestion that there might be disagreement between US and Iraqi commanders. "We are working together," Yawer told reporters. "These people are in our country to help us."
He added: "We cannot afford to be pessimistic."
In Berlin, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany said he hopes "that now there will finally be a stabilization of the security situation in Iraq."
France and Germany had been among the sharpest critics in the Security Council of the US decision to invade Iraq. Yesterday, Barnier said that during the weeks of negotiations on the resolution "there was a real dialogue for the first time in this affair."
