Stunned by the swift US-led takeover of Iraq, neighboring states gathered in Saudi Arabia yesterday to weigh a response as a diplomatic row brewed between Washington and the UN over economic sanctions.
With diplomacy taking center stage after the downfall of President Saddam Hussein, the eight states were expected to discuss ties with the future authorities in Baghdad and offer verbal support for Syria, which is facing strong US pressure.
With all of Iraq now under US and British control, pressure built on Washington to find banned chemical or biological weapons in the country, a leading justification for the war.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not think American teams would find the weapons unless Iraqis knowledgeable about the arms programs told them where to look.
The regional meeting in Riyadh, the first such forum on postwar Iraq, was being attended by foreign ministers from Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Bahrain as well as host Saudi Arabia.
None of these countries was on good terms with Iraq during Saddam's rule, but with a political vacuum opening at the heart of the volatile region, all want a say in what comes next.
"We want to find a common policy to bring to the table, whether it be humanitarian aid or reconstruction, and what political relations [with a future government in Iraq] will be," a senior Saudi official said.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said he thought the meeting would call for withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. "Occupation is not the right response to instability in Iraq," he said in Cairo on Thursday.
Syria has been repeatedly accused by the US in the past week of harboring officials of the fallen Iraqi government but a US official said on Thursday there were now signs that Syria might be considering expelling them.
The US has toned down its rhetoric and Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was considering a trip to Damascus as part of a wider Middle East visit.
But a diplomatic storm could be gathering over Wednesday's call by US President George W. Bush for the UN to lift crippling economic sanctions against Baghdad, first imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Bush faces an uphill battle to get them dropped quickly. The issue raises questions over who controls Iraq's oil and therefore effectively runs the country.
Ironically, diplomats from some countries that had long pressed for sanctions to be eased, and opposed the invasion of Iraq, are now saying the restrictions should stay in place until the UN certifies that Iraq is free of banned weapons.
"For the Security Council to take this decision, we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not," said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who pulled his team out of Iraq before the war, said the US needed expert help to pursue the investigations.
Washington has made clear it prefers to do the job itself, but a Pentagon official said it had enlisted about 10 former UN weapons inspectors to help the search.
Rumsfeld said help from Iraqi insiders would be needed.
"It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something," he said in Washington. "I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it."
The US military hopes captured Iraqi officials will confirm Baghdad had outlawed weapons.
Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi, in his first public appearance in Baghdad, said yesterday that he expects an Iraqi interim authority to take over most government functions from the US military within weeks.
But Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, was vague on the specifics of the immediate process to select such an interim government.
US officials have said the process will include a series of meetings by representatives of different Iraqi groups, the first of which took place Tuesday in the ruins of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq.
Chalabi said that once such an authority is established, the U.S. military will have three functions here: to eradicate any weapons of mass destruction, to dismantle the ousted regime's ``apparatus of terror,'' and to disarm the previous regime's army.
Discussing the immediate future, Chalabi said he foresaw ``first reconstruction of basic services, done by Jay Garner,'' the retired American general, designated to run the military administration. ``I expect this stage to take a few weeks.''
After that, he said, ``an Iraqi interim authority will be chosen by Iraqis and take over the business of governing.''
Tens of thousands of protesters demanded yesterday that the US get out of Iraq, as US troops arrested a fourth wanted aide of Saddam Hussein.
The demonstrators poured out of Friday prayers in Baghdad mosques chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an Islamic state to replace Saddam's toppled government.
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