BAGHDAD, May 8: The core group of Iraqi political factions tapped by the United States to oversee the birth of a democratic government after the fall of President Saddam Hussein agreed on Thursday to add two new members to its ranks.

The agreement came ahead of a meeting with US officials as a self-imposed deadline looms to forge an interim government in Baghdad within the next few weeks.

“We have decided to enlarge the leadership committee by adding two seats — one for a representative of the (Shia) Dawa Party and one for Mr Naseer Kamel Chaderchi as a representative of the Sunni Arabs,” Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani told reporters.

Mr Talabani said four parties had agreed to join the organizing committee planning a national congress, due to begin by the end of May, that will form a government and fill the political void after Saddam.

He said they were the Dawa, the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Communist Party of Iraq and the Arab Socialist Movement.

The core group then met with Jay Garner, the retired US general who is currently the top US civilian official in Iraq. Garner told reporters after the talks: “We continue to discuss the process of raising a democracy.”

The United States this week named Paul “Jerry” Bremer as the new civil administrator for Iraq to oversee Garner amid gossip in Washington’s corridors of power about the pace of the process under Garner’s leadership.

Garner will focus on rebuilding while Bremer, a career diplomat who has not yet arrived in Iraq, will handle the political process.

The leader of one of the five groups, Ahmad Chalabi, from the US-backed Iraqi National Congress (INC), said they had reached a deal with the Americans “to cooperate on security and information about the Baath party membership in order to eradicate the remains of the Saddam leadership which is still in Iraq.”

Respected former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi, who refused a seat on the leadership committee, has agreed to attend the national conference, Talabani said.

Security has become the main issue in the largely lawless country where crime is rampant on the streets. Water and electricity are also scarce and the World Health Organisation said Wednesday it feared an epidemic of cholera was breaking out in the main southern city of Basra.

Garner’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance has made appointments to key ministries in recent days, and on Thursday said a special Iraqi court was likely to be set up that could try former members of Saddam’s regime.

“Prosecution involving crimes on a large scale will immobilise the system for years. So we need to set up some sort of special arrangements to deal with it,” said Clint Williamson, the new US advisor to the Iraqi justice ministry.

He said the future government should be responsible for handling the 55 Iraqis on Washington’s most-wanted list, 20 of whom are in US custody.

“We think the Iraqis should have the lead on that,” he said. “There is a broad consensus that crimes against the Iraqi people be handled by Iraqi justice.”

The creation of the government should see appointments to the 23 main Iraqi ministries which were in place under Saddam, with the top spots likely going to the council members now leading the negotiations.

Apart from Chalabi and Talabani, they are Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, deputy leader of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Iyad Allawi from the Iraqi National Accord.

It remains unclear how long an interim government would run the country before an election is held, or when the United States and its coalition allies would be ready to hand over full power.

Dozens of political groups have sprung up since Saddam’s fall but most have small followings. Many Iraqis see the council as a way for the United States to pre-determine Iraq’s future and gain control of the nation’s vast oil wealth. —AFP