“The American administration must protect the Iraqi identity in this war to win the hearts of Iraqis,” Dargham Jawad Kazim, a member of the political bureau and spokesman of the Iraqi National Accord (INA) in Jordan told Arab News.

“Our presence on the ground will be significant because of our relations and contacts with the Iraqis. They cannot accept a foreign force as they don’t know or will not believe the reasons for its presence on their land,” he explained.

Kazim said his organization had protested to Washington when its troops raised the American flag on an occupied building in Iraq. “Though they hoisted the flag only for a few minutes it was a mistake,” he added.

The exiled groups, who are divided among themselves, worry that there is no place for them in US plans to install a military governor and civil administration for postwar Iraq. Glad at the prospect of the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein but deeply suspicious of US motives, some say they will resist foreign occupation.

Washington has charged retired US Gen. Jay Garner with organizing reconstruction and humanitarian aid and installing a civil administration to prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government by the Iraqis. “The areas secured by the American forces must be handed over to an Iraqi officer from the opposition or to a prominent Iraqi personality to reassure the Iraqis and give an Iraqi face to the whole operation,” Kazim said.

He rejected a comparison of the role of the nine Iraqi opposition groups to that of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. “We don’t like such a comparison,” he stated.

Salah Shaikhaly, a leading member of the organization, said he had presented Washington’s envoy Zalmay Khalilzad with a proposal to quickly install a US-protected interim authority in the “liberated” areas which would liaise between US-led troops and the Iraqi people.

Shaikhaly said the interim authority, run by key Iraqi opposition personalities, “would pave the way for the establishment of a provisional government later.” He also suggested the convening of an all-Iraqi conference under United Nations auspices that would result in the creation of a provisional Iraqi government.

“There’s a question of legitimacy. We feel the UN should supervise the conference. We put this idea to US envoy Khalilzad,” Shaikhaly said. But the United Nations said it was still premature to start talking about any UN role in postwar Iraq as it was unclear when and how the war would end.

“Any military or administrative authority imposed by the occupying power would have no sovereign right on Iraq. It will have no right to represent Iraq in the international arena,” UN spokesman Najib Friji said.