By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A01

BAGHDAD, July 10 -- The U.S.-led occupation authority here intends to relegate religious figures, former exiles and once-ruling Sunni Muslims to a minority role on an interim governing council that will be formed over the next few days, according to Iraqi political leaders and foreign officials involved in the council's creation.

In building the council -- the challenging first step toward creation of an elected democratic government -- the occupation authority is attempting to appease the country's Shiite Muslim majority and the legions of Iraqis who are suspicious of politicians who lived outside country during Saddam Hussein's rule. At the same time, occupation forces are trying to create a body that will cooperate with them and support policies that are generally in line with U.S. interests.

Attempting to deflect criticism over the slow pace of reconstruction efforts, the occupation authority will cede more power to the group than first envisioned, the leaders and officials said. Giving the group a more prominent role in postwar governance is intended to place Iraqis at the receiving end of some of the popular discontent that has been directed at the occupation administration, a strategy that senior officials with the authority said will eventually help to stem attacks on U.S. and British troops.

"In time, this [council] will have an influence on the security situation," John Sawers, the top British diplomat in the occupation authority and a key architect of the council, said in an interview.

In a private meeting with the leaders of seven large political organizations today, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said the council would be given the power to approve next year's budget, select and dismiss ministers, appoint diplomats and set up a "preparatory commission" to decide how the country's new constitution should be written, participants said. "They're going to get responsibility by the truckload," a senior U.S. official said.

U.S. officials had initially promised they would allow Iraqis to hold a national conference aimed at appointing a transitional government. When Bremer announced plans last month to handpick a council of about 25 members instead, he cast the group as a consultative body with only limited power to advise him on policy matters. But officials involved in the process said Bremer recently decided to give the group more clout, largely in response to pressure from Iraqi politicians hungry for added responsibility and a recognition that granting greater power to Iraqi leaders for day-to-day governance could help channel some of the anger over the sluggish resumption of basic services away from the occupation authority.

Bremer now calls the body a "governing council" instead of an "advisory council."

"The pendulum is definitely swinging back," said Hoshyar Zubari, a senior official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party who attended today's meeting. "The Americans are realizing it is difficult for them to govern Iraq by themselves. They are now in the forefront and exposed. Everyone is looking at them as an occupying power. It is a rallying point for all the anti-American forces."

Iraqis who lived in the country during Hussein's rule, and not those who lived in exile, will constitute a clear majority of the council, the officials said. Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, will have more seats than Sunnis, who dominated the government under Hussein, they said. The group will also have more politicians and secular social leaders than religious figures, and likely will include a few women and at least one Chaldean Christian, one Assyrian Christian and one ethnic Turkmen, the officials said. Kurds and a few tribal sheiks will also be included.

"What we're now seeing coming together is a body representing Iraqi opinion which, for the first time in Iraqi history, represents the broad makeup of Iraqi society," Sawers said.

Although occupation officials have not commented publicly on the people who will be named to the council, those familiar with the process said the body will almost certainly include leaders of the country's seven main political groups, all of whom had lived either outside Iraq or in the autonomous Kurdish region. The seven are Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Ayad Alawi of the Iraqi National Accord, Abdul Aziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa party and Nasir Chaderchi of the National Democratic Party.

After Hussein's fall in April, the seven had expected to be placed in charge of a transitional government. But in May, Bremer effectively sidelined them on the grounds that they were insufficiently representative and too disorganized.

His proposal to form the council, instead of holding a national conference to select a transitional government, prompted the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest party representing Shiites, to threaten a boycott. Other groups also voiced strong criticism.

But on Monday, after getting word of Bremer's intention to give them more responsibility, all seven agreed to participate in the council. "Bremer made important concessions in the right direction," said Entifadh Qanbar, a senior official with the Iraqi National Congress.

Despite the agreement, some Iraqi political leaders said the supreme council has not yet told the occupation authority it would participate. The group is said to be pushing for a firm commitment from Bremer that Shiites will have a majority.

Others who likely will be appointed to the council, according to people familiar with the process, include Adnan Pachachi, 80, who served as foreign minister before the 1968 Baath Party revolution; Iyad Jamaleddin, a liberal Shiite cleric who had lived in exile since 1979 and advocates the separation of church and state; Mohsen Abdul Hamid, a Sunni who is a professor of Islamic history at Baghdad University; Lina Abboud, a young, Western-trained gynecologist; Ibrahim Abassi, a leader of the Bani Hassan tribe; and Ghazi Yawur of the Shamar tribe.

For the occupation authority, finding the right mix of people has been tricky. U.S. and British officials want exiles to play a significant role because many of them espouse Western ideas of democracy and religious tolerance, but they are viewed with concern by Iraqis who never left the country. The authority also has tried to court liberal Muslim clerics, but eventually concluded that naming too many might anger conservative religious leaders. Ultimately, Bremer, Sawers and others involved in the process determined that keeping exiles and religious figures in the minority, while trying to empower secular Iraqis who stuck it out under Hussein, would be the best formula, the officials said.

After weeks of negotiations, officials involved in the process said they had settled on about 20 of the 25 members. They said they hoped to finalize all the names by the weekend and invite the prospective members to a meeting -- without officials from the occupation authority present -- where they expect participants to declare themselves members of the council. U.S. and British officials said they want the body to appear as if it emerged from consultations among Iraqis and not as a creation of the occupation authority.

U.S. and British officials said they did not invite people who openly object to the occupation authority's presence, fearing that creating an opposition within the council would hinder its effectiveness. One of the biggest challenges in organizing the group has been ensuring that all the participants -- many of whom come from disparate backgrounds -- get along, officials said.

But some Iraqis said that strategy will shield the authority from dissenting views its officials need to hear. "They're not willing to listen to people who don't agree with them," said Saad Jawad, a professor of political science at Baghdad University.

Sawers said council members, not the occupation authority, will determine how the group is organized. He said they will choose where they will have a secretariat, when they will meet and whether they will have a single president, a rotating chairmanship or an executive body.

Bremer has promised that he will meet with the group at least once a week and consult on all major policy decisions. He has said he will reject their advice only in "extraordinary circumstances."

He said he wants the group to set up panels to examine "big issues about the future of Iraq," including education reform and drafting an election law.

"We're going to give them more work than they can imagine," Bremer said in a recent interview.