IRAQ - Focusing On The Non-Oil Sector - Part 6E - Preparing For Elections.

The US is to keep its forces "out of immediate sight" in several areas of Iraq during parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 31. Until then, the US is to enable the interim government of Iyad Allawi to control as much of Iraq as possible, in close collaboration with the local government of Kurdistan in the north.

The first priority for the US forces is to tame the Sunni Triangle, including Baghdad, which is boiling in anti-American violence. An all-out US military offensive there will first concentrate on Falluja and Ramadi, where the Americans have no choice but to succeed or prepare to leave this country. The US nearly lost control of Ramadi last week (see News Service of this week's APS Diplomat). More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (see pages 5-6 below).

Operations in oil diplomacy, where the US presence in Iraq is concerned, must prove to the Iraqis and the Muslim world as a whole that the Americans are not after Iraqi oil but for the stability and prosperity of the Muslim world. If they succeed in this, all other parts of the Greater Middle East will fall in line.

The preparations for the first free elections in Iraq's history follow bitter criticism of American failures in this country voiced by the most prominent US politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties (see Part 6D, Iraq 4, in ODD4). It is still not certain the elections will be held by Jan. 31, however, in view of continuing American failures in Iraq including the high explosives scandal (see following pages).

The UN would not have as broad a role in the Iraqi elections as it had in the Oct. 9 polls in Afghanistan (see SBME4 of Oct. 25), due to a more narrow mandate as defined by the UN Security Council. A solution to the Falluja/Ramadi crisis may ultimately determine how successful Iraq's elections are, and here the US and Iraqi governments face a dilemma. They can either take the towns by force as the US has planned for, which the UN has warned could trigger a boycott and end any chance that the elections will widen the political process, or hope for a negotiated return of interim government control, which US officials see as "unlikely". A third option would be to agree to hold elections in off-limits areas like Falluja and Ramadi without re-establishing government control. The UN-appointed electoral commission appears to be going ahead with the third alternative.

US, UN and Iraqi government officials plan a programme to try to ensure as broad a participation in the elections as possible. Part of this is to convince armed insurgent groups to give up their weapons and join the elections. Ashraf Qazi, the UN's new special representative in Iraq, who arrived recently, on Oct. 27 was quoted by the Financial Times (FT) as saying: "We want to try and get those who are outside the tent to come in and join the political process".

One condition proposed by some opposition groups is to have US forces withdraw from at least some Iraqi towns, so that elections "will not take place under military occupation", says Dr Wamidh Nathmi, who represents a coalition of four opposition parties, tentatively called the National Brotherhood for Liberation and Development.

The FT quoted a US official in Baghdad as saying the US "fully intends to respect the requests of the election commission and the United Nations" regarding the placement of its forces, adding that coalition troops would keep a low profile "so coalition forces don't give the appearance of controlling the voting, intimidating voters and the like". But he added: "Staying out of immediate sight does not mean pulling out of towns, nor has the UN asked us to do so... We will not agree to prohibitions on coalition or US force movements".

Qazi said the UN was ready to reach out to a wide spectrum of Iraqi groups to "tell them that their best option is to participate in the political process". He offered UN services in helping to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the fighting in Falluja, which has been the target of almost daily bombardment by US forces.

The US is under increasing diplomatic pressure to avoid a full-scale offensive on Falluja and Ramadi (the latter being 50 km to the west of Falluja and having a population of 400,000), which would probably trigger a boycott of the elections by Sunni Arab groups. Qazi said there was concern about the impact civilian casualties in Falluja and Ramadi might have on the political process. But he said the UN's role in Iraq was only to assist the interim government.

The weapons buyback programme for Jaysh Al-Mahdi, the militia of rebel Shiite mullah Muqtada Al-Sadr, has resulted in his movement receiving more than $5m of cash in return for arms in Sadr City alone. Through an extension of the US-funded programme, Allawi's government can disarm other groups - mainly in the Sunni Triangle - after or without the US offensive, and Sadr can finance his transition into politics.