Washington factions struggle for control

US turf war

The shape of a post-war Iraq, set to dominate tomorrow's US-British summit in Northern Ireland, is also the subject of fierce wrangling in Washington, with disagreements between Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department on everything from the make-up of an interim Iraqi authority to the control of humanitarian aid funds.

The chief disagreement, as ever, is between the neo-conservative hawks who run the Pentagon and the more moderate, more internationalist outlook espoused by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State. What makes this turf war a little different from previous spats is that it concerns a set of supposedly firm decisions made during the months of planning for the Iraq war, which now turn out not to be firm decisions at all.

On Friday, the White House was forced to intervene after Pentagon officials indicated they were interested in setting up an immediate provisional government without waiting for the end of the war. This government would be made up entirely of the hawks' favourite Iraqi exile groups, notably the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader, Ahmed Chalabi, has not set foot in his native country since 1958.

Many Middle East experts say such groups have no credibility whatsoever and would almost be seen as neo-colonialist American stooges. The State Department, apparently sharing this analysis, has urged waiting until after the war to establish an interim authority representing all factions and ethnic groups.

In particular, the State Department fears that the Pentagon's favourite Iraqi exiles are predominantly Shias, who risk excluding other factions, such as the Sunnis and Kurds, and sowing the seeds for civil war. The White House compromise, announced by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was to say that Iraqis both inside and outside the country would have a role to play and that they – not the US government – would pick Iraq's new leader.

"Iraqis currently free, and Iraqis who will soon be free, and Iraqis who have for decades kept alive the hopes of a free Iraq while in exile, will all have much to contribute to the interim authority and Iraq's future," Ms Rice said.

While this decision might be regarded as a rebuff to the Pentagon, the hawks appear to have argued their corner successfully on one key issue – the role of the United Nations – and wrested a significant concession on another, the question of who will run postwar reconstruction and humanitarian aid operations.

On the UN, both State and Defence are now saying that the primary role for overseeing post-war Iraq must go to those countries that fought the war. Both agree the UN will play some role – the size and scope of which will no doubt be negotiated hard at tomorrow's summit – but not the lead, as some European leaders are insisting.

"It would only be natural to expect that ... having given life and blood to liberate Iraq, the coalition would have the leading role," Dr Rice said. The White House also announced that an Office of Reconstruction and Human- itarian Assistance would be run by Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general designated to oversee America's postwar interests – even though Congress last week assigned $2.5bn (£1.6bn) in postwar aid funds to the State Department, not the Pentagon.

Congressional leaders have been irritated by the secrecy that has characterised post-war planning. The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana, said: "The fact is that no one in the administration has ever shared with me or any members of the committee of either party what in the world they had in mind ... It's not as if we didn't want to know."