Iraqi council wins tussle with US over president

8.45pm


BAGHDAD - Iraqi leaders got their way over US opposition on Tuesday to have their candidate Ghazi Yawar appointed president after Washington's choice stepped aside, averting a showdown between occupiers and occupied.

After two days of bitter confrontation over the largely ceremonial post, Iraqi Governing Council members said Washington's preferred candidate, elder statesman Adnan Pachachi, had turned down the post minutes after being offered it by the United Nations in defiance of the Council's wishes.

"Pachachi was named, then he turned it down and Yawar was named to the position instead. That's it, and everyone is happy," Council member Rajaa Habib Khuzai told Reuters.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the man charged by Washington with naming an interim government, and Pachachi, an 81-year-old former foreign minister, were among those to congratulate Yawar, a tribal chief and civil engineer with ties to Saudi Arabia.

Paul Bremer, the head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Brahimi were also set to unveil the names of a cabinet line-up for the interim government that will take over from the occupation administration on June 30.

Before the expected announcement, mortar or rocket blasts rang out across Baghdad and smoke rose from the "Green Zone" compound where the US-led administration is based.

The Governing Council broadly agreed a list of key cabinet appointees among themselves but aides to Council members said it now appeared that Brahimi and the US officials might also disregard that and appoint a different line-up.

Brahimi was brought in by the United States to mediate between Washington and Iraq's various ethnic, religious and political groupings. However, the Governing Council had sought to push its own candidates on the UN envoy.

The 22-member body, appointed by US officials a year ago, has little clear support among ordinary Iraqis. Its members say they are the legitimate voice of the people following the US invasion that ended Saddam's dictatorship 14 months ago.

US and UN officials have said in the past that the Governing Council did not have the right to make appointments on its own. It caught Brahimi off guard on Friday by announcing the appointment of one of their number, Iyad Allawi, to the top job of prime minister. Many of the other nominations from the Council have come from among their own ranks.

Despite Brahimi's suggestion some weeks ago that he would prefer to see an interim government of apolitical technocrats, the Council appears set on naming many of its own members to the new administration that will supersede its role on June 30.

Both Yawar and Pachachi are Council members from the long dominant Sunni Muslim minority. Allawi is from the Shi'ite majority. Non-Arab Kurds will also get key government jobs.

Yawar is a civil engineer from the northern city of Mosul and a tribal chief who generally appears in traditional Arab robes and headdress. In his mid-40s, he enjoys support from Kurds and Shi'ites and worked for many years in Saudi Arabia.

One Iraqi politician said the Council felt Yawar could rally Iraq's disparate communities.

It was unclear why Washington was objecting to Yawar. He has criticised the US-drafted UN resolution that sets out the handover plan, complaining it gives Iraqis too little control of the 150,000 mainly American foreign soldiers staying in Iraq.

Hoshiyar Zebari, the foreign minister in the current cabinet appointed by the occupation authority, was heading to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday to press for "full sovereignty", said a senior ministerial official.

He added that Zebari expected to stay on in his post.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq