The United States plans to install the first stages of a civil administration to run post-War Iraq in the southern port of Umm Qasr within days.
A US official today said that members of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) are scheduled to start operating in the port as early as Tuesday.
"What we are going to start trying to do, even before the fighting is over in Iraq, is to move to the areas in Iraq that are relatively peaceful, places like Umm Qasr, and to start moving ORHA into Iraq," the official, who asked that his name be withheld, told journalists.
ORHA has become the focus of international controversy. The United States faces criticism for assuming the leading role in immediate post-war Iraq instead of the United Nations.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has rebuffed the near unanimous demands from members of the European Union and NATO to put the United Nations in the driving seat.
Retired US General Jay Garner is set to make his media debut in Kuwait on Monday as the man whom the United States has named to be Iraq's temporary postwar civilian administrator.
The following day, ORHA's operation in the southern region is set to be launched. It will expand rapidly and then spread to other areas, the official said.
"It is a fair assessment to say that this is the first step to set up a civil administration in Iraq," the official said.
Garner's team will administer three regions, with retired General Buck Walters in the south, retired General Bruce Moore in the north and former US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine in the central region.
Aside from this trio of veteran US officials, little is known about the make-up of the administrations for the three regions.
The official declined to say whether Iraqis or Iraqi-Americans would join the first ORHA group working for Walters at Umm Qasr.
ORHA's mission is to provide humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing the country and install a civil administration.
"The goal is to try to restore Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqi people as soon as possible," the official said. First stages of post-war administration planned