You're absolutely right.
I think expert have ideas about how to gradually transfer power to the Iraqis. First create an interim government, (in order to establish their sovereignty and that government could invite the UN to send peace keeping troops, which eans the US and UK troops would no longer be considred an occupation force) and then governmental functions would be quickly transfered to Iraqis. The UN would have a paramount role in that political transition.

Apparently, according to today's Le Figaro, Washington is discovering that Iraqi democracy can be a double edged sword: chi-ites (the majority in the country) insist that a constituant assembly be designed through an election; but for them, the future Iraqi Constitution is already written: the Quran.

Raoul