18 December 2002
Iraqi opposition exiles on Tuesday unveiled the results of a three-day confab in London, having agreed to set up a 65-member coordinating committee to follow up on principles and proposals agreed at the conference, and adopted in a main political statement and a document entitled the “transition period project.”
The conference, attended by 350-plus delegates, focused on the roles of different groups and parties in a post-Saddam Iraq, the nature of the regime to be established, and challenges of a transition period between the fall of the current regime and the adoption of a new constitution.
The issue of oil was largely absent, except for calls in the final statement for Iraqi oil production to be maximized during the transitional period and for a new regime to re-examine the legality of oil development contracts signed after 1990.
Leaders of the opposition were adamant that all oil contracts arranged by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein over the last decade would be declared null and void.
“No one in the opposition can commit Iraq to any contract with a foreign body, be it a state or an oil company, except the new Iraqi government which will emerge after liberation,” Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, told a press conference Tuesday.
“All contracts signed by Saddam Hussein under [UN] sanctions are illegal by international law since he had no right to sign contracts while the country was under sanctions,” Chalabi said. Any future contracts, he added, should take into consideration first and foremost the interests of Iraq.
Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the main groups participating in the London conference, went further, declaring that, “We will not support any company that signed with a dictator… We will use our vote in Parliament against those companies that signed contracts with the Iraqi dictatorship.”
The conference, designed to prepare for a change in regime, was sponsored by the US and hosted by the UK, after Belgium changed its mind about hosting the event.
The attendees — representing several dozen opposition groups and movements, including Islamists, nationalists, Kurds, and independents — struggled to present a “show of unity,” as urged by the US. Several political groups boycotted the conference, while others walked out. Even the main Shia group representing the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) threatened to walk out at one point over its representation on the coordinating committee.
Despite urgings by the US — including special ambassador-at-large Zalmay Khalilzad, who held meetings in his hotel suite throughout the conference — to decide on a small group to act as the opposition’s main contact point, the size of the coordinating committee inflated by the day, from six members to 65. The new committee will hold its first meeting in Iraqi Kurdistan on Jan. 15 to choose a chairman and sub-committees.
The two strongest groups that emerged during the debates and in drafting the final statement were the Shia, represented by SCIRI, and the Kurds. SCIRI is the only group that can claim widespread representation within Iraq, while the two Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, represent 3 million people living in autonomous areas in northern Iraq, protected by the US-backed no-fly zone.
SCIRI won historic recognition in the final statement, which stated that the Shia constitute the majority of the population in Iraq and contained religious references about the definition of the future Iraqi state. However, the group failed to secure a pledge that Islam would be the only source of law in a new Iraq.
SCIRI, supported by Iran and courted by the US, behaved in debates as if it were the future ruling party in Iraq and successor to the Baath regime, according to an independent Iraqi source. Its delegation was led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, brother of the Tehran-based head of SCIRI, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, who remained in close contact with Tehran during the deliberations. At one point, US envoy Khalilzad reportedly told al-Hakim that SCIRI has no guarantee that it will rule Iraq after the fall of the current regime.
The Kurds insisted on the adoption of the principle of federalism as a bedrock for the new Iraqi state — a wish that was granted in the final statement, which also recognized their “legitimate aspirations” and right to self-determination. The Kurds aspire to set up an independent state in northern Iraq with oil-rich Kirkuk as the capital.
As advised by the US, the conference avoided going into details on what kind of a federal state would be established in Iraq and whether it would be a confederation based on geography or ethnicity.
Ruba Husari, London
(Published in International Oil Daily, 18 December 2002)