They had been sent to the United Nations Security Council by the Iraqi delegate, Nizar Hamdoon.

One of the Iraqi delegates, Aziz al-Yasiri, said aides to Mr. Sadr had agreed to meet the group.

"Iraq is a sovereign state," said Nizar Hamdoon, the Iraqi delegate to the United Nations.

By coincidence, the Iraqi delegates departed Washington just as the Bush aide Karen Hughes returned from the Middle East.

Three months ago, a group of Iraqi political delegates visited Indonesia to watch that country's democratic elections in action.

OPEC officials said that the Iraqi and Kuwaiti delegates widely ignored one another at the opening session today.

At the same time, a second official said, the United States would prefer that the Iraqi delegates endorse a structure that would include a single central decision-maker.

Indeed, speaking late Monday, one senior administration official cautioned that it remained unclear whether the Iraqi delegates could meet the deadline of late May or early June.

But he emphasized, as had General Schwarzkopf, that the Iraqi delegates "came in there, they were candid, they were frank, they were very cooperative."