In a country where murders and explosions are daily events, talk of economic stimulus and the emergency budget for 2003 may seem a little premature.

But that's exactly what the Iraqi Governing Council must decide on in the coming months if political power is to eventually shift from U.S. and British forces to Iraqis themselves. The 25-member council appointed by interim U.S. Governor Paul Bremer has taken over most of the provisional governing from the coalition troops since being called into existence in mid-July.

After two weeks of negotiation, the council appointed Ibrahim Ja'aferi, head of the Islamic Da'wa party as the first president of an eight-man committee that will chair the rest of the council. The presidency of the eight-man committee will rotate every month.

With the war-torn country far from secure and Iraqis clamoring for the coalition troops to end their "occupation", the council's assignment seems clear. But some have already asked whether the council, made up of a representative group of Iraqis, will have the final word over the Americans.

"The debate over the powers of the council are the past," Ja'aferi said in a Deutsche Welle interview. In the past three months, Iraqi politicians of every stripe rejected the "advisory council" proposed by Bremer, said Ja'aferi. "Then there was this idea of a political council, and that met with the same fate."

Bremer greeted the council's establishment with optimism, even venturing that power could be completely in Iraqi hands by the summer of 2004. For that to happen, the council would have to draft a constitution in the coming months and then hold elections.

The 2003 budget and the drafting of a constitution will be the council's main goals in the coming months.

Still, "the council can't overlook the fact that other important tasks, that deal with interior security, the revival of the economy and the basic services of the population, still need to be taken care of," said Ja'aferi, who belongs to the country's dominating Shia majority.

Electricity, sanitation still a problem

More than three months after U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, much of the populace has yet to feel the benefits of liberation. Electricity in the capital of Baghdad is turned on and off on a rotational basis and hospitals are operating at a 50 percent capacity. Sanitation continues to be a major problem, according to U.N. reports from the country.

American soldiers are being killed on an almost daily basis, the victims of ambush and guerilla attacks across Iraq. The fact has increased pressure on the Bush administration in the United States who have in turn ratcheted up the pressure on Bremer and others to get things done quicker.

A team of World Bank representatives is in Iraq currently, undertaking a "quick and dirty" assessment of the Iraq economy, a spokesperson told Reuters. The organization, which was last in Iraq in 1979, wants to finish the assessment ahead of a donor conference in October.