Squabble postpones final accord on formation of interim government

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Differences between the Iraqi Governing Council and American authorities over who should be Iraq's figurehead president stalled a final agreement yesterday on the makeup of an interim government to take power June 30.

A council member said the United States and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi favored ex-Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi, who supports keeping foreign troops in Iraq until the security situation is stabilized.
However, most of the 22 members of the Governing Council support the current chairman, civil engineer Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, who has been more critical of the U.S.-led occupation. Both are Sunni Arab Muslims. Council members said they would hold informal consultations late last night and would meet again today to try to reach an agreement. Brahimi had hoped to complete the selection of the 26-member Cabinet by today and sources close to the deliberations said many of the posts had been tentatively filled. Coalition officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said none of the selections would be considered final until all the posts -- including the presidency -- had been filled.

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor denied the Americans were showing favoritism toward Pachachi. "We are not pressuring or urging any one candidate over another," he told reporters. However, a member of the council, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the American governor of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and Brahimi were exerting "massive pressure" to choose Pachachi. Bremer and President Bush's special envoy, Robert Blackwill, attended part of a five-hour council meeting yesterday and urged the members not to vote on the presidency choice, apparently fearing that Yawer would win, council sources said. The Americans warned that if the council went ahead and voted, the United States might not recognize the choice, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

The Coalition Provisional Authority, run by Bremer, has the final say in all policy decisions in Iraq. The tough stand by Bremer in support of Pachachi was unexpected because the Americans had signaled they were primarily interested in approving the choice for prime minister, the top executive job that went Friday to U.S.-backed Iyad Allawi, a Shi'a Muslim.

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1. Another article to this story

Nothing Bush ever says is the truth.




On Sunday, the alliances shifted when Mr. Brahimi teamed up with American officials in trying to choose an Iraqi president. That seemed to provoke a backlash from members of the Governing Council, who accused Mr. Brahimi and L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator here, of trying to dictate to the only representative body in Iraq.

"The Americans are trying to impose these decisions on us, and we are trying to reject them," said Mahmood Othman, a council member who has been critical of both Mr. Bremer and Mr. Brahimi. "And they talk about sovereignty."

Dan Senor, the spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, told reporters on Sunday that the American government did not have "a preferred candidate" for the presidency. But earlier in the day, according to Iraqis, Mr. Bremer told the Governing Council it had to get behind Mr. Pachachi.

It was that kind of heavy-handedness, some Iraqis say, that was supposed to be missing from the new government — and which many had expected Mr. Brahimi to cure.

"It doesn't fit what Bush says," said Mr. Othman, the council member. "He said Iraqis are free."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/international/middleeast/31IRAQ.html?hp