"[Iraqis] are worried that power is being concentrated in the hands of a very few who are getting contracts and lining their pockets," said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq-watcher at the National Defense University in Washington.
To persuade the Governing Council and other Iraqi groups to work together to establish a new government, the administration has employed a variety of arguments, including warning that the U.S.-led occupation authority will not be around to protect them if they don't.
Bremer's strategy, one U.S. official said, is to "just keep telling people, 'We're going to be gone by June 30 and although you are enthused about that idea, just think about what you're going to do on July 1.'
"We want to get out of there, yes, and we have an interest in doing so, but you've got to hope the Iraqis themselves want to get this done by June 30, too," said the official, who asked not to be named.
The U.S. also is counting on using aid to move the council. Asked what leverage the U.S. has over the council, a senior official said: "I would say $18.6 billion for openers matters, and where you put those contracts and in what order matters."
With so many issues to resolve, the planned transfer of political power on June 30 -- if it takes place -- may be considerably less polished than the administration would hope.
Pessimists fear that Bremer could leave behind 100,000 U.S. troops charged with keeping an unpopular, unrepresentative, vulnerable Iraqi government in office. The nightmare outcome, in the words of one expert: a "Lebanon in Vietnam."
But realists say that the U.S. should settle for a modest goal of setting the new Iraqi government, however imperfect, on the long march toward democracy, with the promise of elections in the near future.
Said one person close to the process: "If we have something that vaguely looks like a government, and we don't have Americans dying every day, that would be a wild success."
