Iraqis demand more power, US holds abuse trial (Agencies) Updated: 2004-05-19 08:43 Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council sends a
delegation to the United Nations on Wednesday to demand Washington gives a new
interim government more powers than intended in a planned handover of
sovereignty on June 30.
Washington's handling of Iraq will also be under the spotlight on another
front when U.S. military policeman Jeremy Sivits faces a court martial in
Baghdad in the first of a series of trials triggered by the Iraqi prisoner abuse
scandal.
 Members of Iraq's
Governing Council and other officials pray over the coffin containing the
body of Abdul Zahra Othman Mohammad in Baghdad, May 18, 2004. Iraq's
leaders, flexing muscles as the U.S. prepares to cede sovereignty, are
sending a delegation to the UN to demand control of their oil wealth and
an end to reparations it pays for Saddam Hussein's wars.
[Reuters] | The Governing Council flexed its muscles on Tuesday as Italy and Poland,
staunch U.S. allies over Iraq and major troop contributors, urged Washington to
give Iraqis real power over the running of their country.
"We want to be sure that there will be a clear breakthrough in the Iraqi
situation that will truly give sovereignty," Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi told Rete 4 TV as he flew to the United States to meet U.S. President
Bush.
Berlusconi, under voter pressure to distance himself from Bush's policies on
Iraq, joined Poland in signaling support for greater U.N. involvement to ensure
full sovereignty for Iraqis.
Ukraine, another leading contributor to U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said its
parliament would vote on Wednesday on whether the former Soviet republic should
withdraw its soldiers after opposition parties won a ballot putting the issue on
the agenda.
PRESSURE ON BUSH
The stands adopted by Italy, Poland and Ukraine are likely to put fresh
pressure on Bush, coming only a day after Britain said it planned to step up
training of Iraqi forces to allow its troops to leave as soon as feasible.
Limitations on economic sovereignty, notably control over the world's
second-biggest oil reserves, and international negotiations on a new U.N.
resolution to approve U.S. handover plans prompted the Governing Council to send
a team to New York.
"Iraq must have a say in the next U.N. resolution," Deputy Foreign Minister
Hamid al-Bayati told Reuters in an interview. "Iraq must be fully in charge of
its resource wealth."
Washington wants an international board that monitors Iraq's oil accounts to
remain in place after the June 30 handover.
Iraq still owes some $280 billion in reparations for Saddam Hussein's 1990
invasion of Kuwait, a vast sum next to the $9 billion its oil industry has
earned since the U.S.-led invasion in March last year. The council wants the
reparations to end.
NAKED AND HOODED PRISONERS
Sivits, 24, will appear in a makeshift court at the U.S.-led occupation
administration's Baghdad headquarters, in a public demonstration by the U.S.
military of its determination to show Iraqis that justice will be done over the
prisoner abuses.
Prosecutors say the abuses occurred last October and November at Abu Ghraib,
Saddam's old torture center near Baghdad, and involved around 20 detainees.
Photos have shown naked and hooded prisoners chained, being taunted with the
threat of electrocution and posed to simulate sexual acts.
U.S. officials have said the abuses were limited to a few soldiers in one
prison, but the International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty
International say the abuse was more systematic and widespread.
Facing questioning by U.S. senators, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said control of military prisons
would be handed to Iraqis as quickly as possible, but there was no timetable.
"I would have thought that (the Bush administration) would put some time into
this, especially with what we've just been through the last two weeks," said
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, referring to the prisoner abuse scandal.
REUTERS STAFF SAY ABUSED
Reuters said three of the international news agency's Iraqi staff were beaten
and subjected to sexual and religious humiliation when held for three days in
January in Falluja, west of Baghdad.
They made their complaint public on Tuesday after the U.S. military said an
investigation had found no evidence of abuse.
The cost of Iraq in American blood and dollars is weighing on Bush's campaign
for re-election in November. But Washington and Baghdad are agreed that a sudden
U.S. departure would risk bloodier anarchy in a country of religious and ethnic
divides.
Wolfowitz left open the possibility that Washington could keep 140,000 or
more troops in Iraq through 2005.
The troops would stay until Iraqis had a "reasonable chance to establish a
government that represents them and creates security forces that can protect
them," Wolfowitz said.
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