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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (2888)	7/14/2003 9:44:06 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

U.S. Convoy Is Attacked in Iraq, Killing 1 Soldier and Wounding 6 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 9:18 a.m. ET BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The new governing council -- a U.S.-sanctioned first step toward democratic government in postwar Iraq -- put off selecting a president Monday but voted to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council. In the streets of the capital violence against U.S. forces erupted again, with one soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack. At the close of its first full day of business, the council -- which was announced to the world on Sunday -- issued a statement that said the U.N. delegation would ``assert and emphasize the role of the governing council as a legitimate Iraqi body during this transitional period.'' Monday also was celebrated as the 45th anniversary of a bloody coup in 1958 when King Faisal II, Iraq's last monarch, was killed by nationalists, provoking years of political unrest. It is an occasion that had been celebrated under Saddam Hussein, but monarchists in Baghdad were able to gather for the first time to mourn the king's assassination. Thousands of people -- including Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds -- attended a ceremony in honor of the possible successor to the throne, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, who greeted well-wishers at his palatial headquarters. In west Baghdad, one American soldier was killed and six wounded in the attack by insurgents who fired several rocket-propelled grenades at the military convoy early Monday, said Spc. Giovanni Llorente, a military spokesman. The wounded were taken to a military hospital. Also Monday, the military said a marine in southern Iraq died in a non-hostile incident. It provided no details. The violence followed an apparent failed car-bombing Sunday night on a police station full of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police, local police said. A white Volkswagen was destroyed and a badly mangled and headless body lay nearby, said police Sgt. Adel Shakir. He said the body was thought to have been one of two men who were attempting to get the explosive-packed car near the station. In other business, the governing council -- which brings together Iraq's diverse mosaic of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and ethnic Turks -- formed three committees to outline an order of business for the coming weeks and work out organizational issues, said Hoshyar Zebari, a spokesman for the council. The council had planned to select a leader during Monday's session, but Zebari said that would be done later. In a deeply symbolic first public action during its inaugural session Sunday, the governing council set April 9 -- the day Baghdad fell to U.S. forces -- as a national holiday and banned celebrations of six dates important to Saddam and his Baath Party. And the act was announced, significantly, by a prominent Shiite cleric. Shiites, long oppressed by Saddam, now dominate the 25-member council. ``The establishment of this council represents the Iraqi national will after the collapse of the dictatorial regime,'' said the cleric, Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum from the holy southern city of Najaf. The council will have real political muscle, with the power to name ministers and approve the 2004 budget. But final control of Iraq still rests with L. Paul Bremer -- the U.S. administrator of Iraq and a major architect of the council. With the U.S. military still struggling on the security front establishment of the council was a major political step, giving an Iraqi face to the U.S.-led occupation of the country. American administrators had changed plans several times in the past months, wavering over how much authority to give the new body, which fueled a feeling among many Iraqis that the Americans had come as colonizers, not liberators. As the new members were introduced to the world at the Baghdad Convention Center, Bremer stood and applauded from the front row. But he made no comment, a move designed to lower the American profile. Council member Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, said he does not expect Bremer to veto council decisions and believed negotiations would settle all disputes. Still to be seen is whether the council can convince the Iraqi people that it represents them, even though they never had a chance to vote on its members. Coalition leaders say an election in Iraq is not yet practical. nytimes.com