Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House special envoy to Iraq, right, laughs with Shiite Shiekh Iyaad Jamal  al-Deen from Nasiriyah, at the opening of the U.S. -sponsored meeting on post-war Iraq Tuesday,  April 15, 2003 at the Tallil Air Base, southern Iraq. The United States convened a meeting of Iraqi  opposition groups for the first time since Saddam Hussein's fall to discuss initial steps for Iraq's future. (AP Photo/ Leila Gorchev, Pool)

UR, Iraq - A U.S.-sponsored forum that brought Iraqi opposition leaders together to shape the country's postwar government began Tuesday with a U.S. promise not to rule Iraq and concluded with an agreement to meet again in 10 days.  Some Shiite Muslim groups boycotted the meeting and thousands protested nearby while representatives from some of Iraq's many factions met in the biblical birthplace of the prophet Abraham.  Retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who will head the U.S.-led interim administration in Iraq, opened the conference under a golden-colored at Tallil air base, close to the 4,000-year-old ziggurat at Ur, a terraced-pyramid temple of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians.  "What better place than the birthplace of civilization could you have for the beginning of a free Iraq?" Garner said, wearing an Iraqi flag pin on his blue shirt.

White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad told delegates that the United States has "no interest, absolutely no interest, in ruling Iraq." 

Participants included Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites from inside the country and others who have spent years in exile. U.S. officials invited the groups, but each picked their own representatives. 

Many Iraqis boycotted the meeting in opposition to U.S. plans to install Garner atop an interim administration. Thousands of Shiites demonstrated in nearby Nasiriyah, chanting "No to America and no to Saddam!" 

"Iraq needs an Iraqi interim government. Anything other than this tramples the rights of the Iraqi people and will be a return to the era of colonization," said Abdul Aziz Hakim, a leader of the largest Iraqi Shiite group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. 

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, one of the leaders of al-Daawa Party, an influential Shiite group, turned down his invitation, saying he opposed foreign intervention "exerting pressure on certain Iraqi opposition groups and favoring others." 

U.S. officials hope more Iraqis join the process over time and stressed that this was just the first of many such meetings in Iraq. The meeting concluded with the delegates voting by a show of hands to meet again in 10 days, a senior U.S. government official said. 
 

A national conference is planned to select the interim administration, perhaps within weeks, a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.  The interim administration could begin handing power back to Iraqi officials within three to six months, but forming a government will take longer, said Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the top British member of Garner's team.  "Will we get a complete government in place in that time? I doubt it," Cross said. "One has to go through the process of building from the bottom up, allowing the leadership to establish itself, and then the election process to go through and so forth. That full electoral process may well take longer."

Tuesday: Delegates listen to remarks at the opening of the  U.S.-sponsored meeting on post-war Iraq.

Garner's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is charged with coordinating humanitarian assistance, rebuilding infrastructure shattered by years of war and U.N. sanctions, and gradually handing back power to Iraqis leading a democratically elected government. 

Tuesday's meeting was the first step toward that goal after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. 

In addition to Khalilzad and Garner, the meeting was attended by representatives from Britain, Australia and Poland, which contributed forces to the coalition. 

Sheik Ayad Jamal Al Din, a Shiite religious leader from Nasiriyah, urged the delegates to craft a secular government, according to a pool report. But Nassar Hussein Musawi, a secondary school teacher, disagreed: "Those who would like to separate religion from the state are simply dreaming," he said. 

There are already tensions between the United States and some Iraqi factions. 

Kurdish groups appear unwilling to compromise on their demand to expand the border of their autonomous area to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and Kurdish parts of the city of Mosul. 

That could pose a problem for the United States, because Turkey worries that Kurdish control of Kirkuk could lead to aspirations for independence and in turn encourage separatist Kurds in Turkey. 

Iraqi opposition leaders fear the U.S. administration is trying to force Ahmed Chalabi, head of the London-based umbrella Iraqi National Congress, on them as leader of a new Iraqi administration. 

Chalabi was the first top Iraqi opposition leader to be airlifted by the U.S. military into southern Iraq as the fighting wound down, and he and other top members of his group plan to meet soon in Baghdad. U.S. officials said Chalabi was brought in because he offered forces to the coalition. 

Neither Chalabi nor many other leaders of anti-Saddam groups attended Tuesday's meeting, but they sent delegates. 

The Iraqis protesting the conference said it did not represent their interests. The protesters held banners written in English and Arabic saying the "Hawza," or the Shiite religious seminary in Najaf, represents them. 

Even some of those at the meeting said they did not want Garner leading the interim administration. 

"We will press for any Iraqi civilian administration regardless of what the Americans say. An administration by Garner is not acceptable," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, an Iraqi physician and opposition activist. 

He said American officials have outlined what Garner's administration would look like: Each ministry would be headed by an American, either military or civilian. Each minister would have two American deputies and eight American advisers, plus four Iraqi advisers from inside the country and four Iraqi exiles.