By Jane Morse
Washington File staff writer

Washington -- In the "new atmosphere of freedom" created by coalition forces, the Iraqi people are wasting no time taking advantage of their newly found political and religious rights, says Richard Boucher, the spokesman for the U.S. Department of State.

"The flowering of Iraqi politics on such a rather quick basis is really something to behold," Boucher told reporters at the daily State Department briefing April 23.

"You also have this phenomenon of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi pilgrims now making a pilgrimage they haven't been able to make for 20 years," Boucher said. "And all that becomes possible because of the new situation that's been created by the coalition forces -- the new atmosphere of freedom that we've been able to create that leads to the emergence of politicking in Iraq, which is a good thing, as well as the ability of Iraqis to celebrate their religious liberty for the first time in two decades."

He pointed to broad participation by Iraqis in building a new Iraq. "You have groups from outside that are coming in that are setting up operations, meeting with followers, trying to make contacts among local people," the spokesman observed. "You have groups of local people who have been coming forward. You've got local officials, people who can do things and run things coming forward and getting organized."

The United States, he said, is encouraging dialogue among the many groups in Iraq. The first formal meeting to bring Iraqis together to discuss their country's future took place April 15 in Ur; another will be held April 28 in Baghdad. The hope is that a series of such meeting will lay the groundwork for an Iraqi interim authority, the spokesman said.

Asked whether U.S. officials have contacted Iran about movement of Iranians into Iraq, Boucher said the United States has made it clear to its contacts that "outside parties need to ... keep from any particular interference with different groups, and need to do whatever they can to prevent Iraqis from escaping, Iraqi regime officials from escaping or otherwise ... affecting the situation for the worse."

Asked about the current condition of the relationship between the United States and France, the spokesman replied, "We want to cooperate and work together where we can, where it's in our interests. But, also, we have had some fairly strong disagreements lately, and we need to also think about how to deal with those and what the implications might be in terms of the kind of cooperation we can have on these issues."

While a number of countries disagreed with U.S. decisions regarding Iraq, the disagreements with France were "much more acute," Boucher said. "France didn't just disagree with our policy, they actively lobbied against it," he said. Such actions, the spokesman said, will have "consequences," but he declined to describe specifics.

"The point I would make," Boucher said, "is that having had disagreements like this in our relationship, doesn't change the fact that we're allies; doesn't change the fact that on a daily basis we cooperate in many, many fields, whether it's anti-terrorism or finance or sometimes trade policy, various things we're doing together even around the world.

"At the same time, there is obviously an effect on the relationship on how we look at things, how we evaluate things, and how we look at things we might want to do in going forward. So, there are consequences for those things. We will have to take into account the disagreements, have to see to what extent the new cooperation in other areas puts them in the past, but also have to understand that we did have these disagreements, understand that they were serious and difficult, and that that has consequences for the future."