Pro-American Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi has called for US forces to remain in Iraq until the country holds elections, a process he said could take two years.
"The military presence of the United States in Iraq is a necessity until at least the first democratic election is held, and I think this process should take two years," Chalabi said in an interview on ABC television's "This Week" program.
A report in Sunday's New York Timessaid the United States was planning to seek long-term access to as many as four military bases in Iraq. Pentagon officials said they had no information about the report. Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress whom analysts have said is the US choice to lead Iraq, said Islamic religious parties could participate in postwar Iraqi politics.
"There is a role for the Islamic religious parties, including Shia religious parties, because they have some constituencies. But they are not going to be forcing any agenda or any theocracy on the Iraqi people," he said.
Chalabi said reports of emerging assertions of power by clerics and religious groups in some cities should be viewed as acts of defiance against deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after a period of repression, rather than a threat to stability.
"I do not think this should be read as anyone trying to set up an authority or to challenge whatever emerges from the process of an interim authority," he said. New freedoms following the ouster of Saddam have meant that thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites were able to take part in the first pilgrimage to the holy city of Kerbala for the first time in more than 25 years this weekend. Chalabi, the first major exile politician to reach Baghdad since the collapse of Saddam's government, stood by earlier declarations that he will not be a candidate for office in the country's interim government.
"I am not seeking a political position in Iraq at this time. I want to focus on building civil society, I want to focus on building democratic institutions," he said. Iraqis will draft a constitution that will provide for orderly changes of political leadership, Chalabi said.