THE premature handover of sovereignty in Iraq yesterday marks the first short step on the country’s long and rocky journey to full independence.

When Paul Bremer, the American proconsul, stepped on to a US military transport plane and waved farewell to Baghdad, his duties were in theory transferred to an Iraqi caretaker government, which was sworn in afterwards.

The Iraqis, under the leadership of Iyad Allawi, the Prime Minister, boast all the trappings of authority, including a multibillion-pound budget, 26 ministries, tens of thousands of civil servants, a police force and a fledgeling army. But the transfer masks the reality that power still remains with the supposedly defunct US-led coalition.

Hundreds of American and British officials will continue to work alongside the Iraqis. The budget will be supervised from outside and crucially security, the overriding challenge facing Iraq today, will remain in the hands of 140,000 American and 8,400 British troops, who are due to be deployed in the country for at least another 18 months.

Without the foreign military muscle, expertise and money, the new government would probably not survive long at the hands of its ruthless opponents, a mixture of former Saddam loyalists, Islamic militants and foreign fighters, whose daily attacks have crippled Iraq.

In theory the new Iraqi government could ask the Americans and British to withdraw their forces immediately. In practice, they have given the foreign troops broad rights to defend themselves, and capture or kill Iraqi suspects.

The arrangement is not the Anglo-American conspiracy that many in the Arab world suspect. The architects of the new Iraqi caretaker government deliberately designed it to be so weak that it could not pass new laws or even any constitutional matters. It is only supposed to rule for seven months until elections are held and a more representative leadership can be chosen by vote next January.

The only forum where the Iraqi government is expected to have any real say is through the newly formed National Security Committee, headed by Dr Allawi. Here, he and his ministers of the interior and defence will be able to coordinate operations with the US military commander in Iraq and his British second in command. Crucially, though, the Iraqis do not have the right to veto operations by the US-led forces.

The most visible symbol of the 14-month occupation in Iraq, the heavily fortified green zone in Baghdad, that served as the coalition headquarters, will remain largely unaltered.

More than 1,000 US staff will continue to work in Saddam’s former Republican Palace, once the coalition headquarters but now renamed the US Embassy annexe. When the new embassy is finally completed, John Negroponte, the new American Ambassador, will move with his diplomats into the largest US mission in the world.

The Americans have calculated that by keeping their troops in Iraq and spending more than £10 billion in aid they will continue to have a powerful voice in the affairs of the host country.

The British, too, are completing a neat diplomatic manoeuvre, designed to respect Iraq’s sovereignty but also to leave them with strong influence over Iraqi affairs. Edward Chaplin, the newly appointed British Ambassador, arrives next month to take up his post, overseeing the largest British embassy in the Middle East. He will be in charge of about 180 British staff, including diplomats, aid officials and a large police contingent working alongside the Iraqi government at every level.

The British have their embassy already prepared and it, too, will be located inside the green zone near the US mission and under the protection of barbed wire, concrete walls and hundreds of American soldiers.

Certainly for many ordinary Iraqis yesterday’s handover of authority will be a disappointment and bring little change to their day to day lives. David Richmond, Tony Blair’s envoy to Iraq, who left Baghdad yesterday, predicted that the current spate of violence, which has killed thousands over the past year, will probably continue over “several weeks and maybe several months”.

The poor state of public services and the slow pace of reconstruction are all likely to remain serious problems until there is a dramatic improvement in security, lawlessness is reduced and normal life can return. The next phases of the transfer of power will also depend on at least some stability taking hold in Iraq. Newly trained Iraqi soldiers and police should be able to start sharing the security burden, but they will have a tough baptism of fire.

Over the coming months United Nations and Iraqi electoral officials have to arrange for the country’s first democratic elections. Campaigning and voting will be impossible in large areas of the country unless the violence is halted.

Without elections the next phase of the handover — drawing up a permanent constitution — would be impossible. That, in turn, would make proposed elections to a permanent body at the end of 2005 very hard to realise.

Yesterday’s well-choreographed transfer of authority was carried out two days early to confound any plans by the insurgents to disrupt the event through violence. Next time it may be far harder to deceive them.

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