Iraq's opposition groups are due to meet today for the first time since Saddam Hussein's fall, but the man widely tipped to be the country's next leader will be noticeable by his absence and stubbornly insists he is not a candidate.
Absent too will be the country's largest Shia opposition grouping. The Iran-based Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), said yesterday that it would not be represented at the US-brokered meeting because it lacked independence. "What is most important in our view is independence," Mr Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the organisation's number two, said in Tehran.
"We refuse to put ourselves under the thumb of the Americans or any other country, because that is not in the Iraqis' interests," he added.
Despite this, the coalition side remains apparently confident. The top British official involved in the US effort to run post-Saddam Hussein Iraq said he hoped an administration would be set up in Baghdad in two weeks and the first Iraqi oil sales in three months.
Asked if an elected government could be set up within six months, Brigadier General Tim Cross said: "I don't think so, one has to go through the process of building from the bottom up. That full electoral process may well take longer."
The most prominent Iraqi absent from the meeting, at least in US eyes, will be Mr Ahmad Chalabi who said on Sunday that he would send a representative to the gathering in the southern town of Nasiriyah, where the US is expected to lay out its vision of a post-Saddam Iraq.
Mr Chalabi (57) - who has lived in exile most of his life and is consequently an unknown quantity for most Iraqis - has repeatedly said he has no plans to seek political office in any future government.
"Absolutely not. I am not a candidate for any post," Mr Chalabi told France's Le Monde newspaper yesterday. He wanted only to "participate in the rebuilding of civil society, which has been completely destroyed and corrupted".
US government officials pointed out that Mr Chalabi was not the American favourite to run the country. "Chalabi is one of the recognised leaders of the opposition to Saddam Hussein. We also have contacts with a number of other leaders," they said on condition of anonymity at US Central Command in Qatar.
And on the ground in Iraq, Mr Chalabi was not being hailed as a returning hero. "We don't know him, I don't think any Iraqi knows anything about him," said Sheikh Abdul Hakim Sultan, a Shiite Muslim cleric in Nasiriyah.
Meanwhile, there is continuing controversy over how central a role the United Nations should play in the rebuilding of Iraq. The US officials in Qatar said: "We do think there will be a UN role in there, but they won't be the ruling partner."
The White House special envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, will chair the Nasiriyah meeting along with Mr Ryan Crocker, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
"We expect this to be the first in a series of regional meetings that will provide a forum for Iraqis to discuss their vision of the future and their ideas regarding the Iraqi Interim Authority," State Department spokesman Mr Richard Boucher said. - (AFP, Reuters)