BAGHDAD, April 29 (Xinhuanet) -- US Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent remarks that the coming Iraqi government would not take the full sovereignty have destroyed the hopes of Iraqis, observers here said.

    Frankly and publicly, Powell last Monday announced that the coming interim government after power transfer by the end of June would have to give up some of the sovereignty to let the US-led coalition forces freely move in the country.

    These declarations disappointed Iraqis, especially those who support the Americans and who want the ending of the occupation in June 30 and return of full sovereignty to the country.

    According to Powell, the American plan for the coming Iraqi government also includes that the Iraqi army would be under the command of the Americans.

    Iraqis wonder now what kind of a state with sovereignty that Washington is giving them after the power transfer in June 30 if the government does not have the right to legislate laws, does not control its army, and Washington chooses its leadership and government.

    The declarations consolidates the situations of extremists in both Shiites and Sunnis, who think that the US does not intend to withdraw its troops from Iraq, and that's why the people should fight to throw them out and regain its sovereignty.

    For a month now there has been fierce fighting in Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, Najaf, 180 km south of Baghdad, and Karbala, 100 km south of Baghdad, between armed resistance and the American forces, which is costing the Americans a lot of casualties and financial losses.

    The resistance would find in the declarations a chance to prove for the Iraqis that they were right in resisting the occupation.

    The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) said that it is now holding 3-day conference to agree on the form of the coming government, but it is very well known that the government would only be decided by Paul Bremer, the American civil governor in Iraq, as his last task here.

    Muhsen Abdul Hamid, the general secretary of the Islamic Party and an IGC member, said that they would conclusively refuse a diminished sovereignty.

    Such radical declarations from the IGC members are being repeated in the Iraqi newspapers, but everyone knows that IGC members would accept anything that Washington wants, including what Powell announced the other day.

    News leaked to the media that Bremer intends excluding a number of IGC members, like Ahmed Al Chalabi, head of National Congress Party who is supported by Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense.

    If this happened, it would mean a victory for the trend led by Powell, the observers said, adding it is believed that Powel is now starting to control the administration in Iraq and preparing the atmosphere for the US ambassador to run the embassy in Baghdad after the power transfer to Iraqis by the end of June.

    Iraq is known to be the country where the event of the one thousand and one nights story took place, but now it is the country of the one thousand and one problems and, unlike the stories, they do not seem to have happy endings.

    The Iraqis have complained that a series of problems continue, with the lose of sovereignty and the deteriorating security as the most unacceptable.

    "We also find problems like poverty, unemployment, residence, pensions, salaries of employees, disputes about foreign investments, transportation, chaos in traffic, bribes, reconstruction of the infra structure, providing electric power, and changing the schools curriculums," they said hopelessly. Enditem