TURKEY: The opposition's disunity and infighting is testing the patience of the US, which is considering running Iraq itself, writes Lynne O'Donnell, in Istanbul
The first meeting on home soil of Iraqi groups hoping for a role in government after the fall of President Saddam Hussein is expected to go ahead within days. However, long delays in arranging the meeting have highlighted differences between the opposition parties and forced a rethink about the post-war scenario for Iraq.
The meeting, in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil, has already been delayed a month and now presents a crucial test for the opposition, widely derided as unpopular and unrepresentative.
"They are not very credible," said Ms Sonia Cantillion, of the Iraqi Democratic Foundation, about the opposition.
"They have never worked inside the country, it is true that people do not trust them. People inside the country take no notice of them, they are not very interested in the meeting and don't even talk about it," she said.
Organisers hope the meeting will help the opposition present a united front. Mr Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdistan Democratic Party's director of international relations, said it aimed to give "the opposition more credibility and to make it speak with one voice".
Some delegates, notably Dr Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Council, have proposed the formation of a government-in-exile to step into the breach once a US-led operation had removed President Saddam from power. This has earned the ire of Washington, with President Bush's personal envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Zelmai Kalildad, threatening to boycott the Irbil meeting unless he had assurances this was not the case.
The Constitutional Monarchy Movement, which wants to restore the monarchy ousted in a 1958 coup, has threatened not to show up in Irbil for the same reason. The man who would be king, Mr al-Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, said: "We believe it is up to the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi people alone, to choose who governs them."
The meeting aims to bring together exiled opposition figures from a broad range of groups elected at a conference in London in December to create a framework for a post-Saddam future.
At the conference, 65 exiles were named to a co-ordinating committee, representing six main organisations - the Iraqi National Congress, the Supporters of the Constitutional Monarchy in Iraq, the Iraqi National Accord, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
There are also independents, representatives of Islamic and liberal parties, former members of the Iraqi military, tribal leaders and political activists. Organisers hope at least 40 delegates will turn up.
With more than 20 groups involved, the main players hoping for a role in a future government are those who now have a large stake in Northern Iraq. This is a vast region of up to five million people which has become a de facto independent state for Kurds, with protection from joint British-American flyovers, since the first Gulf War.
Mr Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan which controls the eastern region of northern Iraqi and has a fighting force of 25,000, has pledged to play a role in a post-Saddam Iraq.
The Irbil meeting has brought the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan together with its former arch-enemy, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Mr Massoud Barzani, who supports a federal Iraq which would preserve Kurdish autonomy. The Kurdish Democratic Party controls the western part of Northern Iraq, represents traditional tribal Kurdish society and has around 35,000 men in arms.
The other major player, and likely participant in a Washington-approved leadership council, is Ayatollah Sayed Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has thousands of armed fighters in Iran. A Shia cleric, Mr Hakim opposes a federation in favour of free elections.
The infighting and lack of unified purpose among opposition figures appears to have exhausted the patience of the US, which is now considering running Iraq itself in the immediate aftermath of war.
Washington has said that once President Saddam is toppled, it wants to replace his dictatorship with a democratic system that would give every Iraqi a voice. But just how the Bush administration plans to create a free Iraq from the ashes of the divided and impoverished pariah state it is now remains unclear.
Proposals for an 18-month military occupation, with an American military governor in control, military officers in key administrative posts and soldiers in charge of oil fields, have caused alarm in the opposition camp. The Iraqi National Congress's Mr Chalabi has even suggested there could be an armed revolt against US occupation forces once the war is over.
The US plan would leave the basic infrastructure of the ruling Ba'athist Party intact to avoid a complete breakdown in administrative control, and, consequently, ease concerns in neighbouring countries about unrest in Iraq leading to civil war that could spill over their borders.