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Former viceroy L. Paul Bremer did 14 months of hard service in Iraq, so it is a special shame to see that he is now squandering that legacy by blaming others for what's gone wrong there.... Mr. Bremer revised his remarks: "I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq." ...Trouble is, we haven't found a single other senior official involved in the war or its aftermath -- in or out of uniform -- who attests to Mr. Bremer's version of events. "I never heard him ask for more troops and he had many opportunities before the President...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-appointed Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for one of the fiercest opponents of former President Saddam Hussein in connection with murder, politicians and lawyers familiar with the case said Friday. Abdul Karim al-Mohammadawi is known as "Prince of the Marshes" for leading resistance to Saddam in Iraq's southern marshlands even after the ousted dictator drained the wetlands in a campaign to crush Shi'ite rebels in the 1980s and 1990s. The warrant states that Mohammadawi, a former member of Iraq's now defunct Governing Council, is wanted in connection with the murder of a police officer...

THE thick, black smoke that drifted over the prosperous Mansour suburb of Baghdad last January had nothing to do with the bomb blasts and rocket fire that shook the Iraqi capital almost daily. In special furnaces built into an old warehouse complex near the former headquarters of the Mukhabarat intelligence service, Iraqi workers were burning money. The coalition's decision to introduce a new Iraqi currency could scarcely have been avoided. No one wanted banknotes bearing the face of Saddam Hussein. Yet the operation to exchange and destroy countless old Iraqi dinars was an invitation to fraud. The way judge Zuhair...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A senior Bush administration official Tuesday hailed the appointment of a new Iraqi government and said the Coalition Provisional Authority would remain sovereign until June 30 to help the new leadership phase in. The official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, also confirmed that the Iraqi Governing Council, in office since July, had voted to dissolve effective immediately to allow the new government to begin taking over its responsibilities. He also said the new Cabinet would begin negotiations on the status U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq after June 30 "fairly soon." The official said...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders are wrangling over who should succeed Saddam Hussein as president after they agreed on other key posts in the new government that will take power next month from the U.S. occupation authority. With the top post of prime minister filled and consensus on key ministries, Iraqi officials spoke on Sunday of sharp disagreement on the largely ceremonial choice of head of state between Adnan Pachachi, veteran scion of a pre-Saddam political dynasty, and Ghazi Yawar, a youthful engineer long based in Saudi Arabia. U.S. and U.N. officials may now be ready to propose a third...

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...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Iraqi Governing Council chose a longtime anti-Saddam Hussein exile to become prime minister of Iraq's interim government, making the surprise announcement Friday despite U.N. concerns over his ties to the United States and the CIA. The selection of Iyad Allawi - a Shiite Muslim council member who headed an exile group made up of former Saddam military officers - was an assertion of influence by the U.S.-picked body. After apparent initial hesitation, the United States endorsed the choice to head the government due to take power on June 30. A senior Bush administration official in...

<p>BAGHDAD, May 17 (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded on Monday near a U.S. base in western Baghdad and there were several casualties, witnesses at the scene said.</p> <p>Cars were on fire and a large column of thick black smoke rose into the sky. U.S. troops blocked off the area.</p>

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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...

WASHINGTON — How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history? Obstruction of justice has never had it so good. Last month, after some badgering in this space and elsewhere, the House International Relations Committee announced it would look into the $5 billion kickback scandal in the United Nations' six-year Iraqi oil-for-food program, the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken. Our State Department, eager for U.N. help in Iraq, wants no revelations of U.N. ineptitude and corruption. It waltzed the committee staff around. Senate Foreign Relations, however, not wanting to be upstaged by its House counterpart, called...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Culminating a policy reversal toward the United Nations, President Bush officially embraced a plan Friday that would give the world body a more prominent role -- perhaps even the central role -- in guiding Iraq’s postwar political transition.</p>

<p>Iraqi politicians are playing a growing role in blocking U.S. commanders from unleashing fatal force on insurgents.</p> <p>In the most glaring example, Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, insisted to American Administrator L. Paul Bremer that Marines cease their attacks on insurgents in Fallujah so he could initiate talks.</p>

Baghdad: The US-led coalition in Iraq and the Iraqi Governing Council threatened Monday to ban the Arab world's leading satellite news channels al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyeh reporters from Iraq for ratcheting up sectarian strife in this war-torn country, according to a leading government official. For almost a week, until the Marines began to take on embedded reporters, the two channels were among the handful transmitting news from the battleground town of Falluja. Their frequent use of the term "massacre" and their ongoing use of images of bloodied women and children has led US officials in Iraq to question the balance of...

Iraq Council Members in Talks with Rebel Cleric Sat Apr 10, 2004 03:34 PM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Several members of the Iraqi Governing Council are negotiating with rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to end a Shi'ite uprising in the center and the south of the country, a member of the council said on Saturday. Naseer al-Chaderji declined to give details of the talks but said a deal would have to include Sadr's renunciation of violence and a commitment by the authorities to improve the lot of his mostly impoverished supporters. "They are in direct contact with Moqtada. We are already...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iyad Allawi, a prominent member of Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim Governing Council, has stepped down as the head of the executive body's security commission, his party's newspaper said. Baghdad daily, mouthpiece of the Iraqi National Accord, said he "renounces his mission at the head of the commission. "The commission does not have prerogatives to find effective solutions to the deterioration of the security situation" in the country, it said. The paper said Allawi had submitted a letter to the current Governing Council president, Massud Barzani, in which he expressed "reservations on the measures adopted by...

BAGHDAD, April 10 (Reuters) - A delegation from Iraq's Governing Council held talks in Falluja on Saturday to try to secure a peace deal with rebels after days of fighting that has killed hundreds of people. "The delegation, which is made up of two members of the Governing Council and also includes clerics and other notables from Baghdad, is meeting (rebels) in Falluja now," Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council, told Reuters.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A delegation from Iraq (news - web sites)'s Governing Council held talks in Falluja on Saturday to try to secure a peace deal with rebels after days of fighting that has killed hundreds of people.   "The delegation, which is made up of two members of the Governing Council and also includes clerics and other notables from Baghdad, is meeting (rebels) in Falluja now," Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council, told Reuters.

Fallujah, Iraq - A U.S. AC-130 gunship raked Iraqi insurgents Friday night after hundreds of women and children fled the besieged city Fallujah during a U.S.-declared pause in the marine offensive. On the anniversary of the fall of captive Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime, Baghdad and parts of central Iraq were chaotic. At a square in the capital where Saddam's statue was toppled a year ago, soldiers took down a new icon: pictures of the radical Shiite Muslim cleric whose followers have risen up against coalition forces in the south. Gunmen running rampant on Baghdad's western edge attacked a fuel...

As transfer of power looms, Bush sets hopes on Shia technocrat, in third strategy shift in six monthsThe United States will transfer power in Iraq to a hand-picked prime minister, abandoning plans for an expansion of the current 25-member governing council, according to coalition officials in Baghdad. With fewer than 100 days before the US occupation authorities are due to transfer sovereignty, fear of wrangling among Iraqi politicians has forced Washington to make its third switch of strategy in six months. The search is now on for an Iraqi to serve as chief executive. He will almost certainly be from...

It helps sometimes to put things in historic and metric perspective. The Iraqi Governing Council adopted a constitution on March 8, 11 months after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The German Western Parliamentary Council adopted a constitution--in May 1949, 48 months after the fall of Adolf Hitler. George W. Bush's critics complain of his "rush to war" and unpreparedness for its aftermath, but the 11 months it took to get a constitution was less than the 14 months between his speech naming Iraq as part of the "axis of evil" and the beginning of military action in Iraq. What is...

The Iraqi Governing Council celebrated today what council president Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum called "a historic moment, decisive in the history of Iraq" by signing an interim constitution in Baghdad. The new "Transitional Administrative Law" will serve as Iraq's constitution between June 30, when the Coalition Provisional Authority returns sovereignty to the Iraqi people, and completion of a permanent constitution by a directly elected parliament. During a ceremony today in Baghdad, 25 council members signed the 25-page interim constitution that senior council member Adnan Pachachi called "a beacon of light and hope for future generations." The document includes a 13-article bill...

Feb 18, 2004 Administration Considers Extending Governing Council So It Can Take Temporary Control By Barry Schweid/ The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is considering a major shift in its plan for transition to Iraqi self-rule, possibly extending and expanding the U.S.-appointed Governing Council so it can take temporary control of the country on July 1, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. The serious consideration of that option comes as the Bush administration waits for U.N. help - now delayed by at least a week - in settling differences among Iraqi leaders on how to meet the...

BAGHDAD, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council said on Saturday that a U.N. ruling on the feasibility of elections demanded by a top cleric would not be binding, and that Iraqis must settle the question themselves. U.S. plans for a political exit from the country it invaded and occupied have been shaken by calls from the top religious authority among majority Shi'ite Muslims for direct elections, not the caucuses Washington wanted, before a June 30 power handover. The U.S.-led occupation authority says Iraq lacks the voter rolls and laws for a proper election by the...

Iraq's Governing Council on Tuesday launched an investigation into alleged bribes by the former dictator Saddam Hussein when it asked oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum for an official report on the subject The request followed allegations in the Iraqi press that scores of senior officials and organisations from around the world had received crude oil in return for political support for Mr Hussein's regime. "They're going to ask the Ministry of Oil to come and explain what was going on," said a participant at a Governing Council meeting on Tuesday. "If the coupons [for oil] are bribes, they are illegal...

BAGHDAD As Ayad Allawi recounts the story of how he was nearly hacked to death by Saddam Hussein's agents 26 years ago, he slips out of his earnest role as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and into a narrative of flickering images and half-heard noises. Listen to his account and you begin to understand why the struggle to create a new Iraq is so brutal and frustrating. The attack came about 3 o'clock on the morning of Feb. 4, 1978. Allawi was asleep in bed with his wife at his home in Surrey, outside London. He was awakened...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council has barred the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera from government offices and news conferences for one month, the council said in a statement Saturday. The ban on one of the most popular television news stations in the Middle East went into effect Wednesday and is punishment for the disrespect the station allegedly showed toward prominent Iraqis, according to the statement. It is the second such ban against Al-Jazeera since September. Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout told The Associated Press that "it's yet another unfortunate situation." "Al-Jazeera is trying to ascertain exactly what happened with a...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites) plans to investigate allegations that dozens of officials and businessmen worldwide illegally received oil in exchange for supporting former leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), officials said Tuesday.   Their statements came after al-Mada, an independent Baghdad newspaper, published a list it said was based on oil ministry documents showing 46 individuals, companies and organizations from inside and outside Iraq who were given millions of barrels of oil. "I think the list is true. I will demand an investigation. These people must be prosecuted," Naseer Chaderji, a Governing Council member, told...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A leading member of the Iraqi Governing Council called Friday for nationwide direct elections in Iraq, echoing a growing number of voices in the country seeking elections before the United States hands over sovereignty July 1.</p> <p>"The view that we hold in Iraq now is this -- that democracy is associated with elections," said Ahmed Chalabi, who was the first to hold the council's rotating presidency. "I believe that elections are possible."</p>

Is the Bush administration having second thoughts about its plan to transfer power to an interim Iraqi government by the end of June? The question is raised by recent remarks made by officials in Washington and Baghdad about possible delays in implementing the plan. The reason cited is a statement last Sunday by Grand Ayatollah Ali Mohammed Sistani, the most prominent religious leader of Iraqi Shiites. His statement came in response to a question put to him by a group of un-named "believers" who wished to know what he thought of the plan to set up an interim government. The...

<p>Following is an edited transcript of a statement made by Adnan Pachachi, the current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, at a Baghdad news conference Thursday. Pachachi is heading a Governing Council delegation that meets Monday in New York with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq. Pachachi's statement was made in Arabic and was translated by the U.S. occupation authority.</p>

US struggles to save Iraq self-rule plan Bremer flies home for consultations even as revered Shi'ite cleric objects to US plans for picking interim new government WASHINGTON - Trying to salvage a timetable for Iraqi self-rule, US administrator Paul Bremer was recalled from Baghdad for brainstorming consultations amid an American scramble to overcome growing Shi'ite Muslim resistance to its power transfer plan. Although the White House insisted Mr Bremer's visit was routine, his trip home came as Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, refused to back the US plan for regional caucuses to select a transitional assembly,...

MR. SENOR: Good afternoon. We have a slight technical glitch. Only one of the plasma screens here will be working. So we should have that fixed within the next couple days. I've just got a brief few words, brief opening statement. Then General Kimmitt will do a short presentation, and then we are happy to take your questions. We are joined by Hamid al-Kifa'i, who, as you -- many of you know, is the spokesperson for the Governing Council. And he is here to answer any questions you have with regard to the Governing Council. Ambassador Bremer today welcomed the...

<p>BAGHDAD — The United States yesterday rejected a demand by Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric for quick direct elections, saying it is logistically impossible to do so and meet a July 1 deadline to hand power to Iraqis.</p> <p>"There is no electoral infrastructure in this country to institute direct elections immediately," Dan Senor, a spokesman for the coalition, said in response to reporters' questions about the timing of Iraq's elections.</p>

Iraq Governing Council Details Plan to Root Out Baath Members BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council unveiled guidelines banning senior members of the ousted Baath party from public sector jobs and will soon announce measures to root out them out of private sector and trade associations. Council member and head of the De-Baathification Commission Ahmad Chalabi also said the council will approve within the next two days a law on the restitution of property "illegally possessed" by Saddam Hussein's ousted regime. Chalabi said at a press conference that the guidelines apply for now to the public sector, but that...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Governing Council is close to agreeing on a federal system for Iraq and will defer until next year the explosive issue of whether to give greater autonomy to the northern Kurdish region, two council members said Monday. Dividing Iraq into federal states along ethnic and religious lines is a sensitive matter for Iraqis as well as for others in the region who fear such separations will lead to the disintegration of the country. Turkey and Iran also worry about an increasingly autonomous Kurdistan because of their own Kurdish minorities. In London, meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Jack...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein has given his U.S. captors information on hidden weapons and as much as $40 billion (22.5 billion pounds) he may have seized while he was Iraq's president, an Iraqi official has been quoted as saying. "Saddam has confessed the names of people he told to keep the money and he gave names of those who have information on equipment and weapons warehouses," Iyad Allawi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily. "The Governing Council is searching for $40 billion worth of funds seized by Saddam when he was...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein has given his U.S. captors information on hidden weapons and as much as $40 billion (22.5 billion pounds) he may have seized while he was Iraq's president, an Iraqi official has been quoted as saying. "Saddam has confessed the names of people he told to keep the money and he gave names of those who have information on equipment and weapons warehouses," Iyad Allawi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily. "The Governing Council is searching for $40 billion worth of funds seized by Saddam when he was...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in detention is a broken man, apparently seeking the mercy of his captors to protect him from his own people, an Iraqi official who met him after his arrest said Monday. "I found a very broken man. He was, I think, psychologically ruined and very demoralized. His body language showed that he was very miserable," said Muwaffaq al-Rubaiye, who met Saddam on Sunday with Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S. governor Paul Bremer and Lieutenant- General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. soldier in Iraq. Rubaiye and other members of Iraq's Governing...

BAGHDAD – Several of the most powerful parties in the Iraqi Governing Council plan to resurrect the Mukhabarat intelligence service, Saddam Hussein's most brutal instrument of state terrorism, in a push to rout the Ba'athist-led terrorist network, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Saddam's Mukhabarat is largely held responsible for the disappearance and execution of about 780,000 Iraqis. The initiative exposes both the failure of the coalition forces to gather intelligence on the insurgency and an Iraqi populace increasingly desperate for security. "We will use their own dogs to hunt them down," Nabil al-Musawi, deputy president of the Iraqi National Congress...

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President Bush's drop-in to Baghdad for American Thanksgiving has been rightly reported as a propaganda stunt -- a good one, building morale among beleaguered and homesick U.S. forces, and giving America itself a self-confident boost. But his principal accomplishment during the two-and-a-half hours he was on the ground has gone mostly below radar. In a brief meeting with four senior and representative members of the provisional Iraqi Governing Council, he seems to have broken a logjam. The problem for the U.S. is to be able to hand over full sovereign power to an elected Iraqi government by July 1st of...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq--It has been my privilege to preside over the Iraqi Governing Council during a month of momentous events. We now have an agreement for the transfer of authority between the coalition, the liberators, and the council, the representatives of the liberated Iraqis. President Bush has outlined an inspiring vision for a free and democratic Middle East. Our American friends are resolutely striking back at the vicious remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and damaging the network of Baathists and foreign Islamists attempting to destroy the Iraqi experiment in democracy. Yet these gains could easily be forfeited if we Iraqis do not bear the brunt of the fighting.</p>

<p>BAGHDAD -- It has been my privilege to preside over the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) during a month of momentous events. We now have an agreement for the transfer of authority between the Coalition, the liberators, and the IGC, the representatives of the liberated Iraqis. President Bush has outlined an inspiring vision for a free and democratic Middle East. Our American friends are resolutely striking back at the vicious remnants of Saddam's regime and damaging the network of Baathists and foreign Islamists attempting to destroy the Iraqi experiment in democracy. Yet these gains could easily be forfeited if we Iraqis do not bear the brunt of the fighting.</p>

What if, by some miracle, everyone 'fessed up to mistakes made about the surprisingly easy overthrow of Saddam and its unexpectedly bloody aftermath, and mistakes now being made in building democracy? (1) In London, the amalgam of isolationists, pacifists and anti-Blair leftists — once certain they would spoil a state visit by branding the U.S. president a monster militarist — would generously admit that they had been a noisy minority, and that their discourtesy triggered a reaffirmation by most Britons of the ties between two freedom-speaking nations that lead the world in defeating tyrants. (2) Gen. Wesley Clark would have...

Governing body in Baghdad wants to limit American military to patrolling borders and guarding oil installations Rory McCarthy in Baghdad Monday November 17, 2003 The Guardian Iraq's governing council wants to significantly reduce the role of the US military after the rapidly advanced handover of sovereignty in July next year. The American-appointed governing council signed a groundbreaking agreement with the US civil administration in Baghdad on Saturday, paving the way for a new transitional Iraqi government to take power much faster than originally intended. US officials, including the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, have insisted that American troops will stay in...

Agreement on Political Process 1. The “Fundamental Law” · To be drafted by the Governing Council, in close consultation with the CPA. Will be approved by both the GC and CPA, and will formally set forth the scope and structure of the sovereign Iraqi transitional administration. · Elements of the “Fundamental Law”: – Bill of rights, to include freedom of speech, legislature, religion; statement of equal rights of all Iraqis, regardless of gender, sect, and ethnicity; and guarantees of due process. – Federal arrangement for Iraq, to include governorates and the separation and specification of powers to be exercised by...

Iraqi Cabinet Takes Oath of Office September 03, 2003 Reuters Washington Post BAGHDAD - Iraq's first line-up of ministers to replace the ousted government of Saddam Hussein formally took office on Wednesday, vowing to lead the country to democratic self-rule. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, outgoing head of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council that is to supervise the ministries in consultation with Iraq's U.S.-led occupiers, described their appointment as a step toward meeting the needs of Iraqis neglected under Saddam. "Exceptional effort is demanded from every minister, and that he work for the rebuilding of Iraq, and do all that is needed to meet...

WASHINGTON - Under the pressure of increasing U.S. deaths in battle, President Bush (news - web sites) said Thursday the United States wants Iraqis to take more responsibility for governing their troubled country and said coalition forces are determined to prevail over terrorists. Bush said he was sending L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Baghdad, back to the country to work with Iraqis on developing a plan to speed up estabishment of an Iraqi government. He said Bremer, in two days of urgent talks at the White House, said the Iraqis want to be more involved. "That's a...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under the pressure of increasing U.S. casualties, President Bush is moving to speed up establishment of an Iraqi government to take charge in Baghdad.</p> <p>With 396 U.S. casualties, shrinking support from the American public, a troubling intelligence report and a stony silence from nations that have been asked for more peacekeeping troops, Bush wants to shorten the U.S. occupation.</p>