Lawmakers hear some details on turnover plans

The new government will not have the power to make laws.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials offered Congress on Thursday their most detailed explanation yet of U.S. plans for turning power over to Iraqis after June 30, saying that while its sovereignty will be limited, the transition government will be in charge of most ministries, oil revenues and an international development fund.
The administration will also seek another U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq, the officials said, in hopes of winning more international support for the rebuilding effort, though they did not yet know what the resolution might say or when it might be offered.
But three days of administration testimony, including closed-door briefings Thursday from national security council adviser Condoleezza Rice, also made it clear that security would remain the responsibility of the United States. The officials reiterated that U.N. plans call for a transitional Iraqi government whose primary purpose will be to prepare for elections next year but which will not have the power to enact laws.
To play major role
Moreover, the new U.S. Embassy, scheduled to be the largest in the world, will continue to play a major role in Iraqi affairs.
The administration's presentation did not reassure some of its critics.
"There is no plan," declared Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "Not enough troops, and no plan."
Even administration spokesman Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, tacitly conceded that time is short for a successful handover of sovereignty.
"As much of this that can be accomplished as early as possible is a good thing," he said in testimony Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We do not want to be in a position on July 1 of turning on the light switches" at the embassy for the first time, and the administration does not want "to be running around at midnight on the 30th of June trying to get a Security Council resolution."
To name officials
U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to name the senior officials of the transitional Iraqi government sometime in May, Grossman said.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Grossman said it was important to the United States that the Iraqi Governing Council that Brahimi is putting together "should not be a lawmaking body." The United States, Grossman said, does not believe "that the period between the 1st of July and the end of December should be a time for making new laws." The United States, Grossman said, is "pleased with the sketch that Ambassador Brahimi provided of his proposed way forward, and believe his idea fits in our vision."
Already, nearly three dozen diplomatic security officers are on the ground in Iraq, putting together a security plan for protecting the American diplomats. But Grossman acknowledged there are "difficult questions related to security left to be answered."