This cabalistic view of the way the Iraqi thinks about their situation under Allied occupation was expressed by Mr. Ghassan Salameh, a Lebanese who worked as a political adviser to the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s special Representative in Iraq.

A former professor of political science at the American University of Paris, Mr. Salameh escaped "miraculously" the car bomb explosion that destroyed the United Nations offices in Baghdad on 19 August, killing de Mello as well as another 23 people, most of them UN’s employees.

Addressing a packed press conference held on Monday at the Foreign Press Centre (CAPE) in Paris, he proposed to "invert" the roles played in Iraq by present actors as the best and more efficient way for saving Iraq from chaos and possible disintegration.

Coming back from a three months survey of the Iraqi situation, Mr. Salameh said though the present American-sponsored Iraqi Provisory Council does not represent all the components and parties of the Iraqi nation, -- which explain its unpopularity with the population by large --, yet it can be made credible if it could put forward crystal-clear plans for free elections.

As he was presenting his suggestions to the press, in Washington, US President George W. Bush, in a key speech, asked for help in Iraq from the United Nations and the international community, mainly his most important allies that opposed the war, namely France, Germany and Russia, pointing out however that the United States would continue as the main conductor.

"What Washington ought to do for being credible in Iraq and bring the Iraqi people to effectively back them is to present a clear-cut date for ending the occupation, otherwise it would be seen as an occupier and colonial force, uniting the Iraqis to put up resistance, as they do now", Mr. Salameh said, stressing that he was speaking on a personal position and not that of a UN official.

"What the Iraqis want now and foremost is security, public services and a government and institutions that speaks for them", he said, based on extensive talks and meetings with the highest Iraqi religious dignitaries and political leaders.

For the time being, Salameh said, none of the three demands exist.

"There is no light at the end of the tunnel", he added, observing that adding more troops to the existing ones would solve nothing until the Iraqis take more responsibility in running the affairs of their country.

According to American and British sources, thousands of Iraqis serving with the Badr Brigades, the military wing of SAIRI and hundreds of Iranian special agents entered Iraqi during the very first days of Iraq’s invasion by the Allied forces.

The explosions of the Jordanian Embassy, the UN’s offices, the Assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, the leader of the Iran-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, as well as sabotaging pipe lines coupled with increasing attacks on Allied forces, are few examples of what Mr. Pepe Escobar, a senior journalist with the Hong Kong-based "Asia Times Online" internet newspaper describes as the "vietnamisation of Iraq"

For Mr. Salameh, though the present Provisory Council is not the best of the solutions, "for the simple reason that the people do not trust it", yet, taking into account the present circumstances, it can help improving the situation, provided it also shows it is provisory, help draw a secular constitution and is backed by international community, the Arab world and above all, its neighbours.

[In an interview with Mr. David Ignatius, the former Editor of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, published in "The Daily Star" of Beirut a day before, Mr. Salameh had suggested the merging of the existing governing council and cabinet.

"The two 25-member interim bodies are duplicative, with the heads of key political factions sitting on the council and their deputies typically serving as ministers. The merged body would be reduced to 20 to 25 people, and the United Nations would then recognise it as Iraq’s legitimate government", he proposed.]

"Whatever the Allied reasons for attacking Iraq, it belongs to the past. One has now to look forward, to address Iraqi people’s most urgent needs and this can be done only in case all the pros and the cons of the war joins hands and sent a unanimous, clear message to them.

Contesting the clichés that presented Iraq of the toppled dictator Saddam Hoseyn to the Nazi Germany politically of to the satellites of the former Soviet empire economically, Mr. Salameh stressed that the present situation was not "tenable" and could explode anytime, "no matter of how many foreign forces you have there".

"By wanting to fight terrorism at any cost, one has ended to encourage it to install itself in Iraq", Mr. Salameh pointed out without naming the United States.