IRAQ: The US administration in Iraq has said it is scrapping plans to hold a national congress to decide on an interim government and will instead be appointing a 25-30 man political council. Jack Fairweather reports from Baghdad.
Senior figures in the political council, drawn from a broad religious and ethnic background, will shadow their American counterparts in the administration with a view to taking the reins of power.
Reacting to criticisms that the debate over the future of the Iraqi government has been bogged down, the US administration said it wanted to "accelerate and broaden the political process", and that the new political council would be set up within six weeks.
The council will begin drafting a new constitution which will be put to the Iraqi people in a referendum.
Reaction to the appointment of the council was mixed on the streets of Baghdad last night, betraying the lack of involvement that ordinary Iraqis feel about the process that will determine their future.
Ahmed Al-Essa, a former bank manager said: "We really have to be informed about what is going on. This is why people are becoming so angry with the Americans because we feel that we have no power."
Meanwhile, aAmerican initiative to rid Baghdad of crime by declaring a gun amnesty began yesterday with a resounding lack of interest by Iraqis.
Residents were meant to either register their weapons or hand over to the police in sealed plastic bags the thousands of machine guns and rocket propelled grenades that have flooded Baghdad's streets since the end of the war.
But at police stations up and down the city yesterday not a single weapon was being handed in, despite a concerted information campaign and the threat of a year in prison for people found carrying unregistered weapons once a two-week "period of grace" has expired.
"It's difficult to know why the Iraqis haven't responded," said an American officer at one police station.
But in the Iraqi capital yesterday the American's failure to curb the city's high crime rate was cited as the real reason for the failure of the initiative so far.
Although Baghdad's American led administration, ORHA, has claimed that crime in Baghdad is falling after the peak of looting that followed liberation, ordinary Iraqis still remain too scared to surrender the protection they feel a gun provides.
Many feel that the weapons registration process is a ruse to take their guns away.
"It's a matter of trust," said Dr Saleh al-Salawi, a lecturer at Baghdad University.
"Do I trust the Americans to protect me if I hand in the gun I use to protect my family. Of course not. Until I stop hearing about rapes and murders everyday, I will not hand in my gun."
In Sadr City, home of one of Baghdad's most crime-ridden neighbourhoods, the response to the proposed gun amnesty was more angry than circumspect.
"People are furious that the Americans are trying to take away our guns," said Mr Ahmed Mohammed (27). "I need my gun to give me security as I go about the city."
At the nearby gun market, forced underground two weeks ago by a high profile crackdown but where any manner of weapon can still be bought, stallholders considered the gun amnesty whilst polishing their weapons.
"There are just as many guns as there were before," said one stallholder.
At least one American soldier was wounded and an Iraqi killed yesterday when a US armoured vehicle was hit by an explosion in a northern Baghdad district.