Baghdad's 'mayor' arrested

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military arrested a political pretender in Baghdad on Sunday, while a Shiite Muslim group signaled a new willingness to cooperate on the eve of a pivotal U.S.-sponsored conference to help form a provisional government for Iraq.\nThe arrest of Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi reflected U.S. determination to brook no interlopers in its effort to build a consensus for administering Iraq. Timed just before Monday's high-profile conference, it sent a clear message: Don't meddle.\nAl-Zubaidi was a returned exile associated with the opposition Iraqi National Congress who had declared himself mayor of Baghdad without sanction from U.S. occupation authorities.\nHis activities, including designation of "committees" to run city affairs, had complicated the efforts of postwar U.S. civil administrator Jay Garner to reorganize political life. A U.S. military spokesman said al-Zubaidi was arrested "for exercising authority which was not his."\nMonday's conference, second in a series likely to extend well into May, was expected to attract 300 to 400 delegates from political organizations that had opposed Saddam Hussein and from other Iraqi interest groups, said a Garner deputy, Barbara Bodine.\nThe first meeting was held April 15 in Ur, in southern Iraq, just a week after U.S. troops took control of the Iraqi capital and ousted the Saddam government. Fewer than 100 Iraqis participated, many of them exiles, as some Shiites and others stayed away in protest of potential U.S. influence over selection of a new Iraqi president.\nBodine told reporters that, on Monday, "I think we are going to see more of an indigenous representation, simply because we've had more time to organize."\n"There's going to be a lot of leadership emerging," she said. No obvious presidential choice has appeared thus far, however, and Bodine would not be drawn out on names. "I wouldn't know today who that's going to be."\nIn the Spanish capital, Madrid, a gathering of Iraqi exiles issued a statement calling for Iraq to be governed by a federal system that respects all religions, ethnic groups and women's rights. Their three-day meeting was sponsored by Spain's government, which was a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led attack on Saddam's regime.\nThe conference in Ur agreed on a set of 13 principles, among them that Iraq must be democratic, Saddam's Baath Party must be dissolved and a future government should be organized as a federal system -- the last point an acknowledgment of the difficulty of centrally governing a land and society divided between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Kurds and Arabs.\nThe series of conferences is to produce an "interim authority" led by a new president that would pave the way for a constitution and democratic elections two years or more in the future.\nShiites, a 60 percent majority long suppressed under Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime, have been enthusiastically exercising newfound freedoms, organizing community-level political activities, protests against the U.S. occupation and religious events.\nOpen elections in Iraq might produce a government dominated by the Shiite clergy, as in neighboring Iran, some observers believe. But the U.S. defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, insisted in an Associated Press interview last week, "That isn't going to happen."\nRumsfeld, who is on a tour of the Persian Gulf, repeated that stand Sunday during an interview with Abu Dhabi television, which is widely seen throughout the Arab world.\n"We cannot have a regime like that in Iran where a few religious men control the situation in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. "The men and women of Iran want freedom and change. A regime like that of Iran is not compatible with our vision for Iraq."\nSome Shiites fear Washington will force a president on Iraq -- Ahmad Chalabi, a longtime exile supported by U.S. government funds in building the Iraqi National Congress opposition group.\nChalabi has attracted little public support inside Iraq. The government in neighboring Jordan warned Washington on Sunday against backing Chalabi, saying he lacked credibility among Iraqis and noting his 1992 conviction in absentia for fraud in Jordan. Chalabi has denied any guilt and said the case was instigated by Saddam.\nShiite resistance to the U.S.-sponsored political process in Iraq seemed to be easing.\nThe Iran-based Iraqi exiles of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution, a Shiite group that shunned the first conference, indicated they might attend Monday's meeting.\n"No definite decision has been taken so far. We have been invited and will most probably attend," leading member Mohsen Hakim told AP on Sunday in Tehran, Iran's capital.