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OPERATION: ENDURING FREEDOM Taliban hunting an American? Opposition leader executed reportedly accompanied by U.S. agent By Toby Westerman © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com At the same time some 1,500 opponents of the Taliban – warriors and holy men – gathered in Peshawar, Pakistan, to lay plans for the next Afghan government, Taliban fighters located and killed one of their most influential opponents – and may be hunting for an American reported to have accompanied him. Abdul Haq, a well-known hero of the anti-Soviet guerrilla war and long-standing opponent of the Taliban, was found south of the Afghan capital, Kabul, captured and then killed, ...

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said today that Iraqi nuclear scientist Hussain al-Shahristani doesn't want a top job in new interim government. Al-Shahristani, a Shi'ite Muslim who was jailed under Saddam Hussein's regime, was identified as a leading contender for prime minister. Brahimi, who is in Baghdad helping Iraqis agree on an interim government that will take over June 30, said he met al-Shahristani and thinks highly of him, his spokesman Ahmed Fawzi said in a statement. Brahimi "has no doubt that Mr Shahristani could serve his country well in a number of positions in government", the statement said. "Mr Shahristani,...

BAGHDAD, June 22 (KUNA) -- A special panel charged with dissolving the ousted ruling Baath Party and its remnants said Wednesday that reported meetings between UN envoy Lakhdar Al-Ibrahimi and some insurgency groups were held without knowledge or participation of the elected Iraqi government. A statement issued by the committee said representatives of these groups called, during these shadow meetings, for re-allowing the Baath Party to re-activate itself and re-group its ranks.

...In letters to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Mr. Annan wrote that, "I wish to share with you my increasing concern at the prospect of an escalation in violence, which I fear could be very disruptive for Iraq's political transition...." How nice of Mr. Annan to express such fine impartiality between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the Americans and Iraqis the terrorist and his gang are trying to kill. The insurgents are using Fallujah and environs as a staging area for their violence, dispatching suicide car bombers, kidnapping and beheading innocent tourists...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed Iraq "back into the family of independent and sovereign nations" Monday and called on all Iraqis to assist the new, interim government. The U.N. Security Council also welcomed the handover of power and the official end of the American and British occupation and reaffirmed "the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Iraq." Annan's top adviser on Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the "former occupying powers" and the new government must now demonstrate to the Iraqi people that the 150,000 foreign troops in the country are there to support the government in maintaining security — and...

Bremer the 'dictator' of Iraq – UN envoy UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Wednesday responded to criticism of US involvement in the nomination of the new Iraqi government by stressing Washington was still the dominant force in the country. "I would remind you the Americans are governing the country so their point of view was certainly taken into consideration," he said at a news conference. "He has the money, ..the signature" "I don't think he'd mind my saying this: Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money, he has the signature," said Brahimi after stressing he had...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi Governing Council members accused American officials Monday of pressuring them to accept Washington's choice for Iraq's new president, prompting a delay in the announcement of a new government to take power from the U.S.-led coalition June 30. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had hoped to complete the selection of the 26-member Cabinet by Monday. However, a Governing Council session that was to have chosen a president was postponed until at least Tuesday, with sharp differences remaining between the council and the coalition over the largely ceremonial head of state job. "I hope it will be taken...

The Bush administration's agreement for Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to Iraq, to choose the next interim Iraqi government could signal the end of U.S. efforts to establish democracy in Iraq, says Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. The appointment appears to be part of a scenario in which the United States plans to order troops home after a general election in Iraq by the end of the year. Under this scenario, Iraq will have had its election, the United States will have declared victory and the only losers may be those who hope for Iraqi and Arab democracy. "The...

May 27, 2004, 9:32 a.m. Spinning Out of Control Iraqis are frustrated with the CPA. By Mahdi Bassam The Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist in less than six weeks. Its administrator L. Paul Bremer will return home; many Iraqis hope he will not return to their country. U.S. government officials say the "Bremer-Brahimi-Blackwell" plan may be unveiled within a week. Its general outlines have already become clear. It is headed for failure. The choice of a Sunni Arab nationalist to appoint an interim government is misguided. While undersecretary of the Arab League between 1984 and 1991, Brahimi remained...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi Governing Council on Friday nominated one of its own members, Iyad Allawi, a Shiite Muslim physician who spent years in exile, to become prime minister of the new government to take power June 30, members said. The chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, was at Friday's council session and congratulated Allawi on his nomination, said Mustafa al-Marayati, an aide to council member Raja Habib al-Khuzaai. The council also planned to nominate a president and two vice presidents. But it was not known whether U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has approved the choices. Brahimi has...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iyad Allawi, a member of Iraq (news - web sites)'s Governing Council with long-time links to the CIA (news - web sites), has been chosen as prime minister of Iraq's interim government, an aide to Allawi, Hany Adris, told Reuters Friday. "There was a meeting Governing Council and Dr. Allawi was unanimously chosen as prime minister," Adris said, adding that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and the U.S.-run occupation authority in Iraq had endorsed that choice. Other Governing Council sources confirmed the selection. Allawi is a wealthy secular Shi'ite and former member of Saddam Hussein (news - web...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, have agreed on the nomination of Iyad Allawi as prime minister of a new Iraqi government, a member of the Governing Council said Friday. Mahmoud Othman said Bremer and Brahimi had agreed to the council's choice of Allawi, a Governing Council member with long-time links to the CIA, as prime minister in the post-June 30 government. "We had a meeting with Bremer and Brahimi and they both agreed and congratulated him and were happy about it," Othman told Reuters.

U.S., U.N. Blindsided on Iraq PM Announcement 1 hour, 55 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When word surfaced in Baghdad on Friday that Iyad Allawi would lead Iraq's interim government, confusion reigned both in Washington and at the United Nations, despite President Bush's assurances of an orderly handover. For weeks, the Bush administration has described the selection of the interim government as a process that was being spearheaded by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in consultation with the United States and Iraqis. Bush, in a major address on Monday, laid out...

WASHINGTON: William Safire The three factions controlling Iraq - long suspicious of one another - are now on the brink of open tribal warfare. Not the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds - I mean the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA. The spark setting off this U.S. bureaucratic conflagration is the former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, a sophisticated, secular Shiite who organized resistance to the Sunni despot Saddam Hussein before it was popular. Since 1996, the CIA has hated him with a passion. In that year, American spooks egged on Iraqi officers to overthrow Saddam. Chalabi claims to have warned...

(Washington, D.C.): Ahmed Chalabi has suddenly become a kind of Arabian piñata, presented to the world as everything from a con-man, felon and liar to the man who singlehandedly duped the U.S. government into invading Iraq on the basis of fraudulent intelligence and promises of a flower-strewn cake-walk. To the extent the Bush Administration is contributing to this transparent effort to find a scapegoat for its increasingly troubled Iraq policy - presumably, in the hope of improving the President’s sagging popularity here at home - it has made not only an epic strategic mistake, but a potentially costly political one,...

A Shia nuclear scientist said to be close to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is emerging as one of the frontrunners to become the new prime minister of Iraq. Hussain Shahristani spent a decade in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison for defying former dictator Saddam Hussein's command to turn his scientific expertise to the development of nuclear weapons. Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations special envoy, and Robert Blackwill, a Bush administration official, are still finalising the composition of the new Iraqi government. Officials say that balancing the communal, religious and ethnic groups within the new government is proving difficult and fluid, and caution that...

Baghdad - Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, who has recently fallen out with the US-led coalition, said on Tuesday a UN role in shaping a sovereign Iraqi government after June 30 would be "dangerous". "The envoy of the UN secretary general is organising a national conference to choose a consultative council. This is a dangerous idea that provokes instability," an emotional Chalabi told reporters here. "Iraq is not Afghanistan and we do not need a Loya Jirga" he said, referring to the tribal assembly that shaped the Afghan government after the end of the US-led war to oust the...

From Friend to Foe After a startling raid in Baghdad, the U.S. launches an investigation into its former ally Ahmad Chalabi. Was he working for Iran? By ROMESH RATNESAR Ahmad chalabi likes to sleep in. he does his work at night, engaging in endless back-room meetings and talk sessions that often drag on past midnight. On most days he rises late and eats breakfast alone—but last Thursday his wake-up call came early. At 10 a.m., five armored humvees pulled up outside Chalabi's two-story house in west Baghdad. While U.S. soldiers cordoned off the street, seven Iraqi police officers broke down...

Yesterday's early-morning raid on the home and office of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmed Chalabi in Baghdad sends "the wrong message" to America's would-be allies in the Arab world, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin tells Insight. "This is a huge blow to America's prestige. The message we've just sent is that we do not stand by our allies, that the United States can't be trusted. We've just told Arab liberals and democrats that it's just plain crazy to work with America." Rubin, who served as an aide to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, spoke with Sunni clerics, Shiite...

The short, easy and wrong solution to the problems in Iraq is to turn them all over to the United Nations and urge other countries to help. This basically is Senator John Kerry's response to any "What would you do?" questions. He and others who criticize President Bush for going to war without the UN's permission and the support of the international community offer only this egregiously useless solution. The ignorance, misconceptions and faulty judgment displayed in such thinking are appalling. To begin with, we have the support and participation in Iraq of some 30 countries. Not incidentally, the majority...

<p>WHY don't the Americans trust us? Why don't they talk to us? Even before yesterday's raid on the home of Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi Governing Council, more and more Iraqis have been asking such questions.</p> <p>"It is as if we are being scripted out of matters that concern us," says a member of the Committee for Reconstruction and Development in Baghdad. "Several European companies have been enlisted to work out urban development plans that should be decided by us."</p>

Someday we hope U.S. officials will explain to us how in scarcely a year they managed to turn one of our closest allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into an opponent of American purposes. We're referring to Ahmed Chalabi, the member of the Iraqi Governing Council whose home and office were raided by coalition forces yesterday in Baghdad. **************SNIP**************** Mr. Chalabi blamed a political vendetta inspired by U.S. regent L. Paul Bremer. And he claimed the police were hunting for records related to the U.N.'s corrupt Oil for Food Program that he's been investigating. His ties with the coalition are now...

<p>May 19, 2004 -- It looks like the investigation into the U.N. Oil for Food program — one of the biggest corruption scams in his tory — is being hindered by Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority.</p> <p>The Iraqi Governing Council appointed the international accounting firm KPMG to examine the Oil for Food program back in February specifically to investigate just what happened to the billions of dollars in Oil for Food revenues that disappeared during the last five years of Saddam's rule.</p>

<p>May 16, 2004 -- WITH just seven weeks to the scheduled transfer of power to the Iraqis, the United States seems to be preparing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in exchange for a resolution from the U.N. Security Council. Convinced that the Bush administration is looking for an exit strategy with the help of the United Nations, France and Russia have already started raising the stakes on the new Iraq resolution sought by the Americans. In a series of recent statements and leaks, the two veto-holding powers have made it clear that they will not settle for anything less than a humiliating abdication by the United States of its responsibilities in Iraq.</p>

Lakhdar Brahimi is United Nations Special envoy in Iraq. He is an Arab chauvinist and anti-Semitic. He was pro-Saddam when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Algeria from 1991 to 1993 and Under-Secretary-General of the League of Arab States from 1984 to 1991. Not only did Brahimi endorse Saddam Hussein and remain a close ally to him, he also denied that Saddam Hussein, the glory of Arab Leader as he described him, had ever used chemical weapons. Brahimi announced on French radio that "The great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed...

In a breathless hatchet job, the left-wing Internet magazine Salon.com has joined a relentless campaign to vilify Iraqi Governing Council member Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of neocons and many members of Congress. In an article released on May 4, Salon writer John Dizard alleges that Chalabi made false promises to his U.S. supporters, delivered fake intelligence, and more recently worked behind the back of U.S. intelligence in Iraq to allow agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran to organize Iraqi Shiites against the U.S. occupation. The allegations would be devastating if they were true. But a key source Dizard...

<p>BAGHDAD -- Would-be leaders of a democratic Iraq are turning up the heat on United Nations' envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, leveling furious criticism as the Algerian diplomat nears a decision on who should lead an interim government until elections in January.</p>

BAGHDAD: UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, charged with helping form an interim Iraqi government, rejected on Saturday the criticism from members of the US-appointed Governing Council, who accused him of not consulting them on his plans. Brahimi told them the ideas he had submitted to the UN Security Council on the creation of the new transitional body were not drawn up by him or the United Nations. "What we have done is explain the ideas that we have submitted to the Security Council, underlining the fact that these were not a plan from the United Nations or me personally but our...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An expanded Governing Council should appoint and oversee the work of a caretaker government due to take over from the U.S.-led occupation June 30, the U.S.-picked body said Saturday. The statement by the council was the clearest sign yet of significant differences between the Iraqi administration and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi over the best way to establish a transitional government to take power June 30 until elections the following January. Brahimi, who arrived Thursday to help set up the new government, had proposed an administration with limited powers and made up of Iraqis without ties to...

BAGHDAD: UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he wanted the government scheduled to take over from the US-led occupation June 30 to have only limited powers - a goal he said many Iraqis including some of his detractors share. Brahimi, who arrived in Iraq on Friday, also stressed that his proposals were only "ideas in principle" which he developed after consultations with Iraqis during his visits to Iraq in February and April. The proposed government, he said, should be selected before June 1 to allow it to take part in consultations over a proposed UN Security Council resolution expected to...

United Nations, 7 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- As UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi begins final negotiations on an interim Iraqi government, he's facing renewed opposition from Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi. Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, told journalists that neither Brahimi nor the UN have the credibility to lead the transition. He also said Brahimi, a Sunni Muslim Algerian, was too close to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. "To have somebody from outside the country who is an Arab nationalist who had some great support to Saddam in the past, to come and rule the political process in...

<p>May 6, 2004 -- WITHIN the next week or so, the United Nations' special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to unveil his plan for handling the transition in Baghdad. How America and its Coalition allies react to that plan could determine not only the future of democracy in Iraq but also the fate of President Bush's strategy for a new Middle East.</p>

Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action — right from the beginning. The latest post-hoc conventional wisdom on Iraq is that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld won the war but lost the occupation. There are two problems with this analysis (which comes, most forcefully, from The Weekly Standard). First, it's not Rumsfeld's occupation; it's Colin Powell's and George Tenet's. Second, although it's painfully obvious that much is wrong with this occupation, it's simple-minded to assume that more troops will fix it. More troops may be needed now, but more of the same will not do the job. Something different is needed —...

Why the Kurds have reason to be wary of Lakhdar Brahimi 02 May 2004 KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Sabah A. Salih A critic of Arab patriotic bluster he is not. A man without ideological blinkers he is not. A universalist questioning racial privilege and the limits of nationalism he is not. On the contrary, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi is a voice of Arab particularity. It is a voice that sees the Arab nation as a perennial victim of western imperialism and Zionism, a voice that vehemently opposed the American intervention in Iraq, a voice that, rather speaking out against Saddam’s authoritarian...

In Defense of Dr. Chalabi – Who Is Lakhdar Brahimi? 23 April 2004 KurdishMedia.com - By Agit Can The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States marked a bloody beginning to a new era in international relations. Large-scale international terrorism was no longer a distant threat confined to the Middle East – it had now hit two major American cities and taken the lives of thousands of innocent Americans. US President George W. Bush declared a war on terror, aimed at weakening and eliminating terrorist threats to the US and the civilized world. Weeks after the largest terrorist...

Calls for the United Nations to be given a substantial role in Iraq are mounting. With the planned withdrawal of Spanish troops and the ongoing violence in parts of the country, President Bush is under increasing pressure to involve the U.N. Bowing to such pressure, however, will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences for Iraq's democratization. At the end of World War I, the British established Iraq as a country ruled by Sunni Arabs; this minority dominated both the military and the government. Thus were set the foundations for Saddam Hussein's rise to power and decades of Iraqi suffering. So when Ambassador...

WASHINGTON U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the Bush administration's great Arab hope to appoint a transition government that would bring democracy to Iraq, is off to a troubling start. His first mistake was to announce on French radio that "the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians," as well as the "equally unjust support of the United States for this policy." That freelance condemnation was too much for even Kofi Annan, who sent out his official spokesman to explain that Brahimi was "a former foreign minister of Algeria" who...

United Nations special envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi's statement that Israeli policies were "poisoning" the Middle East is "very disturbing," deputy permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Arye Mekel said on Friday. Mekel said that the mission was considering its response to the UN envoy's comments on a French radio station. "We believe that UN officials should be objective, and in fact when we complain about the automatic anti-Israeli majority, they always tell us that we must distinguish between that and the fair treatment [accorded to Israel] by UN officials," Mekel said. Brahimi's statement, Mekel noted, contradicts public and private...

Annan adviser attacks American occupation and Bremer's tactics Jonathan Steele in Baghdad Thursday April 15, 2004 The Guardian (UK) The UN's adviser on Iraq made a surprising attack on Washington's handling of its year-long occupation last night, condemning the detention of prisoners without trial or charge and offering a withering analysis of America's governance of the country. Lakhdar Brahimi, a respected veteran diplomat who used to be the senior UN representative in Afghanistan and now serves as special adviser on Iraq to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, also criticised the Americans for their onslaught on Falluja. "The cordoning off...

Iraq is hardly being returned to Saddam Hussein. He will be tried, and I should think, executed in due course. But the country IS now being returned to the cesspool of Middle East politics. The Bush administration, and more largely, the United States whose interests it represents, cannot afford to govern Iraq indefinitely. Nor are they capable, as the White House has begun to realize, of imposing a democratic order on Iraqi society, as an earlier America imposed democracy on Germany and Japan after World War II. Iraq was not defeated in war; only its hideous tyrant removed, and a...

Calling Brahimi's statement "very disturbing," Israel's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Arye Mekel, said Friday that the mission was considering its response to the Iraqi envoy's description of Israeli policy as "poisonous." "We believe that UN officials should be objective, and in fact when we complain about the automatic anti-Israeli majority, they always tell us that we must distinguish between that and the fair treatment [accorded to Israel] by UN officials," Mekel said. Brahimi's statement, Mekel noted, contradicts public and private statements made by Annan, who has praised Israel's proposed disengagement plan from Gaza. The UN's Middle East...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan distanced himself on Friday from comments by his special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who said Israel's "poison in the region" was complicating his search for an interim Iraqi government. "Mr. Brahimi was expressing his personal views," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in answer to questions. "The secretary-general's views, as expressed over the last seven years, do not contain the word 'poison,"' Eckhard said. Israel's U.N. mission said it was "disturbed" by Brahimi's statements, saying a U.N. official should not voice personal opinions, especially when they contradicted U.N. policy. Brahimi told France's Inter...

<p>America shows weakness in Iraq by passing the buck to the U.N.</p> <p>Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:01 a.m.</p> <p>One mystery of the last year in Iraq is that a U.S. occupation that is supposed to midwife democracy has put so little trust in Iraqis. The Bush Administration may be compounding that error now by abdicating decisions about the June 30 transition to Iraqi rule to U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.N. envoy proposed Wednesday that the U.S.-appointed Governing Council cease to exist June 30 and said the United States should surrender sovereignty to a "caretaker" government of respected Iraqis. U.N. Undersecretary-General Lakhdar Brahimi said the new government should be led by a prime minister, a president and two vice presidents until elections are held in January. The proposed new structure would give Washington a way to dissolve the fractious and unpopular 25-member Governing Council named by the United States. Brahimi's proposals came as Iraq's U.S. administrators have been anxious to show progress on the political...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.N. official sided with the United States in its dispute with Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim clergy over elections, saying Friday it would be hard to organize a vote before the June 30 deadline to hand power to the Iraqis. But a leading, Pentagon-backed politician, Ahmad Chalabi, insisted that elections are possible within that timeframe.Chalabi, a Shiite member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, also demanded that power be given to an elected government - and not one chosen by regional caucuses under the American plan. His comment, made on Al-Jazeera television, signaled protracted wrangling before...