AMERICA’s relations with the Iraqi Opposition were in danger of breaking down yesterday after a leading rebel openly criticised plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and a powerful Shia Muslim group confirmed that it had deployed forces inside the country.

After months of careful co-ordination between Washington and the notoriously divided Iraqi opposition, the biggest splits emerged yesterday between the exiles and the Bush Administration, which until now had strongly supported their cause.

Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, complained that Washington was planning to stay in control of Iraq after President Saddam Hussein had been driven from power and was even considering keeping in place parts of the existing regime.

“American help is essential, and is welcome, in winning the fight against Saddam. But the liberation of our country and its reintegration into the world community is ultimately a task that we Iraqis must shoulder,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Mr Chalabi is in northern Iraq with other opposition leaders. They are particularly concerned by the Pentagon’s plans for the country after the overthrow of the present regime. The opposition had hoped to have some control over the running of the country like that enjoyed by the Afghan Opposition, which seized Kabul from the Taleban and installed a provisional government even before the war was over.

Last week, however, Douglas Feith, the US Under-Secretary of Defence, disclosed details of America’s postwar planning, which envisaged an American-led civil administration working alongside the military, which would take over control of Iraq. The plan, presented to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also anticipated keeping elements of the existing Iraqi bureaucracy and the military intact. The Americans would hand over power only to an elected Iraqi government over an 18-month period.

Washington and London have grave misgivings about the level of support for the exiled Iraqi opposition and believe it essential that a leadership emerges from inside the country. Certainly, the American plan has only a limited role for the Iraqi opposition when the conflict begins. Hundreds of opponents of Saddam are undergoing US military training in Hungary. They will not be used as combat troops but will assist with operations behind the front line, such as interpreting and dealing with prisoners and humanitarian work.

Mr Chalabi predicted, however, that the American plan was a “recipe for disaster”. “You cannot cut the viper’s head and leave the body festering,” he said. “The US plan will do just that if it does not dismantle the Baathist structures. We deserve better. The US has a moral obligation to Iraqis to fight for more.”

Other Iraqi opposition groups may decide to take matters into their own hands. Hamid al-Bayati, a senior figure in the Supreme Council for Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), the main opposition group representing the country’s majority Shia Muslim population, told The Times that many of his group’s fighters were already in place.

“We have fighters in northern Iraq, in central Iraq and the south,” he said, speaking from northern Iraq. “We are here to fight for the overthrow of the regime and to protect our people.”

The so-called Badr Brigade, comprising mainly exiles from southern Iraq, has been based in Ahvaz in neighbouring Iran and numbers up to 10,000. It is led by the Tehran-based Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, trained and financed by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, and could be a big asset for American and British troops when they enter the country. But it could pose a threat if it decides that the liberators stand in the way of its ambitions to see a Shia-led representative government.

“We do not consider ourselves part of the American forces. We will act in the best interests of the Iraqi people,” Mr al-Bayati said.

Yesterday a Reuters correspondent in the village of Meydan reported seeing at least 200 SCIRI forces wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles.

The two main Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, which can muster tens of thousands of fighters between them, are far more supportive of American action. Yet they, too, have misgivings, particularly if Turkish forces are allowed to enter Iraq as part of a deal to allow US forces to use Turkey as a staging post for an invasion. The Turks would like to see Kurdish autonomy in Iraq curbed, fearing that it will encourage a similar movement among its own large Kurdish minority. For their part, the Iraqi Kurds are deeply suspicious of Turkey’s historical claims to the area, particularly the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The tensions that emerged yesterday between rival political, sectarian and ethnic groups are precisely the sort of problems that will plague the US-led coalition in the post-Saddam era.

Sharif Ali, the heir to the Iraqi throne and the leader of the Constitutional Monarchy Movement of Iraq, urged all sides to give the Americans a chance. He said that it was premature for anyone in the opposition to be seeking power or to be presenting themselves as a provisional government. “It is up to the Iraqi people to decide who should run the country. It is not for us to declare ourselves the new masters,” he said. “The Americans have said that it will take months to organise the country for elections. We should be pragmatic and patient.”

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