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NEWS RELEASE HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND 7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894

April 28, 2003
Release Number: 03-04-202


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


BAGHDAD MEETING POOL 11

POOL REPORT. Baghdad April 27; Iraqi Political Dialogue, Central Iraq Meeting
From Alissa J. Rubin, Los Angeles Times, 00-873-762-200-844

Three hundred-plus Iraqi delegates filled the main auditorium in Saddam Hussein's convention center, which is now being used by the coalition forces' Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The meeting, scheduled to end around six o'clock in the evening ran into overtime, lasting until past 8 o'clock as delegates argued, shouted and applauded.

The delegates represented both indigenous Iraqi groups including tribes and political organizations as well as a significant number of Iraqi exile organizations. Turbaned clerics in swirling white robes sat alongside exiles in dark pinstripe suits. Tribal sheiks in the traditional head dress known as ugal and the cloaks known as abbaya, sat next to men wearing informal western slacks and button down shirts.

In the sea of people there was only a handful of women.

The British and American officials sat along the side of the room.

At the front of the room, four officials moderated the proceedings: Muwaffaq al Ruba'i, an Iraqi exile; Zalmay Khalizad, President Bush's envoy to Iraq; Mike O'Brien, the British Foreign Office minister for the Middle East and Kanan Mahia, an Iraqi exile, who heads up the Iraqi Documentation project at Harvard University.

By the end of the day, the meeting had become highly emotional with people often jumping to their feet, speaking simultaneously and applauding. Sometimes the whole room seemed engulfed with noise. It was as if a cork had been pulled out of a champagne bottle and everyone was overflowing with words. .

Even in the last 20 minutes, people were still offering ideas. One man at the back asked that guns be confiscated from citizens. The proposal received only scattered applause.

At the end the group agreed using a show of hands and concensus-there was no mass protest-to convene a national meeting within four weeks to continue the discussion of the formation of a transitional government.

The group agreed to a list of principles. Among them that:
Coalition forces should accelerate their security enforcement activities The United Nations should lift sanctions.
That the International Community should forgive Iraq's debts.
That war reparations (primarily referring to those with Kuwait) should be forgiven. They emphasized the need to begin a process that will lead to a broad based national conference to be convened in a period of not more than four weeks from April 27th to form a transitional government.

End