- A former Iraqi opposition leader believed to have close
links with MI6 and other Western intelligence agencies was yesterday named
as Iraq's new interim Prime Minister.
-
- Iyad Allawi will head an interim Iraqi government that
will take power on 30 June, when the United States-led occupation forces
plan to hand over sovereignty, and is set to take Iraq to elections scheduled
for next year.
-
- It will be Dr Allawi's job to head an interim administration
that is supposed to convince Iraqis, and the outside world, that the occupation
is over even as thousands of American soldiers remain on Iraqi soil. The
Bush administration is facing accusations that the handover is cosmetic
- designed to make it appear the occupation is over ahead of November's
US presidential elections. Washington has made it clear it has every intention
of keeping its forces in Iraq, and wants them to remain under American
command and be outside the jurisdiction of the interim government.
-
- Dr Allawi will face the delicate task of negotiating
with American commanders on the status of forces who will in all likelihood
be out of his government's control. If he is to be successful, he will
have to convince sceptical Iraqis that his interim government has some
real sovereignty.
-
- In a surprise development, Dr Allawi was named as the
new prime minister not by the United Nations' envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, who
has been holding talks on nominating the new government, but by the outgoing
Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).
-
- There was confusion as the Americans initially announced
the council's nomination only amounted to suggesting a possible candidate
for the job, and that the final decision would still be Mr Brahimi's. But
Mr Brahimi's spokesman said last night he never intended to nominate the
prime minister himself.
-
- "Mr Brahimi welcomes the decision to nominate Dr
Allawi," Ahmad Fawzi, his spokesman, said. "We were not invited
to appoint the government. Now that it has been identified, we welcome
the choice.
-
- "We will be working with the prime minister-designate
to appoint a cabinet, two vice-presidents and a president."
-
- The decision to let the council nominate the prime minister
may backfire: the IGC, which was set up by the US to give a veneer of Iraqi
involvement in the occupation administration, has proved highly unpopular,
with its members denounced as collaborators. Dr Allawi is a member of the
council.
-
- It emerged yesterday that the son of another council
member and two Japanese journalists had been killed in two separate ambushes
in the Sunni town of Mahmudiya.
-
- Salama al-Khafaji, one of three women on the governing
council, was attacked as she was returning from Najaf on Thursday where
she was involved in negotiations to end fighting between US forces and
the militia of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr. Her 18-year-old son
went missing in the attack. His body was recovered yesterday. At least
one bodyguard also died in the attack. Ms Khafaji said she was attacked
by Saddam loyalists, but there was a claim of responsibility on an Islamist
website in the name of a group believed to be led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
an ally of Osama bin Laden who is in Iraq.
-
- Two Japanese freelance journalists went missing in a
separate ambush in Mahmudiya on Thursday. Their bodies were recovered in
the town yesterday. They had presumably been returning from Najaf. The
only road linking the city to Baghdad runs through Mahmudiya.
-
- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=526009
|
