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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (189272)	5/26/2004 5:59:17 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577883

Please explain to me what is the problem. You work closely with the Bush administration.........well you think like they do. Why can't they even get the selection of the new gov't straight. Their envoy says one thing in Baghdad while the administration says something else back in DC. This is not rocket science! It just takes a phone call to coordinate. I wonder if they all are screwing with each other. BTW this is not what you call "a left wing paper". Its the Financial Times of London. ****************************************************** Brahimi undercut by US hints on prime minister** By Roula Khalaf and James Drummond in Baghdad and Mark Published: May 26 2004 19:48 When Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy in Iraq, appeared on Iraqia, the US-run local television station on Monday night, he sought to reassure viewers that the caretaker government he was selecting would be truly sovereign, even if its powers were limited. It was part of a series of interviews with the local media aimed at highlighting the leading role played by the UN and lending legitimacy to the transition process. In the interviews, Mr Brahimi has been stressing that he is trying to find a consensus among Iraqis but that he had not yet reached a decision. Within hours of his appearance on Iraqia, however, Mr Brahimi's central message was undercut by US officials' suggestion that Hussein Shahristani, a well-respected nuclear scientist who had been jailed at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam Hussein, was the leading candidate for prime minister. For the past year, Mr Shahristani has been living in Karbala, the Shia holy city. UN officials and the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad on Wednesday rushed to deny the reports, insisting that the decision was in the hands of the UN, not the US State Department in Washington. "No names have yet been decided, and all this is speculation which is not helpful to the process," said Steffan Dujarric, spokesman for the UN in New York. If the choice had indeed settled on Mr Shahristani, said some members of the US-appointed Governing Council, then it was news to them. "He's one of the names that have been mentioned but there are others," said Adel Murad, a senior official in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. For weeks, Baghdad's political circles have been alive with speculation. Iraqi officials have suggested that a shortlist has been drawn up, which includes the names of several members of the Governing Council. But in the absence of a Hamid Karzai-like figure that could rally Iraqis around him as the Afghan leader did after the US war, the search for an Iraqi prime minister has been a struggle. A contender like Mr Shahristani who is a professional, rather than a religious or political figure, would be better received in Iraq but the downside is that few such candidates have sufficient name recognition. Importantly, the choice also has to be marketable in the US ahead of the presidential election. Working with Mr Brahimi is Robert Blackwill, a US presidential envoy. The Iraqi prime minister, who will hold executive powers, will be a Shia Muslim drawn from the majority community that was oppressed under the Iraqi regime, while the ceremonial post of president will likely be held by a Sunni. A nuclear scientist is hardly the obvious choice to lead Iraq through what is likely to be a tricky political transition. Though he is little known in Iraq, Mr Shahristani does not belong to an Islamist party but he is pious and, most importantly, he is said to be close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shia cleric in the country. Although he is still one of several candidates, Mr Shahristani could turn out to be the least controversial compromise, one that the US might hope would send a message of a strong break with the past. news.ft.com