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=> Shahristani vs Allawi

Shahristani vs Allawi
Posted by Tony (Guest) - Tuesday, June 1 2004, 3:45:18 (CEST)
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<http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4935708-103550,00.html >


UN sidelined in choice of Iraqi leader

White House struggles to defend the selection of
candidate who is hardly known in his own country


Peter Beaumont and Luke Harding in Baghdad, Paul
Harris in New York and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday May 30, 2004

The Observer

In a leafy pavement cafe in Baghdad's Karrada district
yesterday, the men drinking tea in the shade and
debating amiably were adamant about one thing: no one
would ever accept an American-appointed politician to
lead Iraq, especially one with close ties to the CIA.

There is a deep distrust of the Iraqi Governing
Council as an instrument of the US occupation and
equally deep distrust of its choice as the first Prime
Minister of the new government to take power on 30
June: Iyad Allawi.

Yesterday the troubled issue of sovereignty in Iraq
was in turmoil as it emerged that it was not only
ordinary Iraqis who had been sidelined in Allawi's
appointment, but the United Nations, Downing Street
and even parts of the Bush administration.

Despite efforts to put the best gloss on Allawi's
nomination, it was clear that a UN process to select
an Iraqi leader had largely collapsed, placing the
decision in the hands of the former exile groups that
dominate the governing council - an outcome the UN had
said it was determined to avoid.

The UN, Britain and America have long insisted that
the process - headed by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi - was
as crucial as the handover of sovereignty.

The intended aim was to decide only after the widest
consultation, following Brahimi's insistence that
candidates should not simply be confined to a council
handpicked by the US, often from groups with little
popular support within Iraq. Brahimi himself had
stressed he would prefer a technocrat from outside a
body where 18 out of the 25 members hold foreign
passports, including Allawi who is a British citizen.
Yet after powerful lobbying among its members, Allawi
was nominated on Friday.

He heads the Iraqi National Accord and is a long term
protegé of the CIA and MI6 who has spent much of his
life in exile.

The White House appeared to struggle yesterday as it
defended the way he was selected, claiming he had
emerged as a 'popular candidate' although he is little
know by Iraqis.

'The United States did not pick anybody as its
candidate,' an official said: 'But when we saw the
political momentum that he was generating day by day,
we thought he would be an excellent Prime Minister.'

Downing Street, which was left out of the loop on the
appointment, put a brave face on it, saying the
government would not expect to have been consulted,
despite its officials having been in touch with
Brahimi on a daily basis. 'It was a matter for the UN
and interim coalition government, not for the British
or American governments,' said a senior Downing Street
source. 'It is Brahimi's job to work with them to
produce a recommended team of people. The last thing
that would be appropriate is saying, "We prefer X
rather than Y".'

The emergence of Allawi, an enthusiastic former
Baathist turned opposition leader, followed the
blocking by him and other council members of Brahimi's
prefered choice, Hussain Shahristani, who had been
offered the job but was forced to withdraw.

Shahristani, 62, a scientist jailed by Saddam for more
than a decade after he refused to help build nuclear
weapons, had not been active in Iraq's internecine
opposition exile politics.

Council members 'feel they are a kind of club, and
this was a person who is outside their club. He
couldn't be a candidate because he cannot get the
support of this club,' an aide to Shahristani told the
Washington Post.

His withdrawal last Thursday left the field open to
Allawi, who had been lobbying furiously for the job.

Yet it is what happened next that is most murky.
Although Allawi's name is understood to have been on
the list of candidates under consideration by Brahimi,
the UN envoy appears to have been bounced into
accepting it by joint pressure from the US and the
council.

Although some officials in Baghdad were expecting the
council to leak Allawi's name on Friday, the news
appears not to have reached Downing Street, the UN or
the US State Department where officials were caught on
the hop by the an announcement that lacked the
imprimatur of the world body.

It caused a flurry of hurried phone calls between
Brahimi, his boss Kofi Annan and the UN in New York.
'This is not how we expected things to happen,' said
one UN official in a mark of UN's unhappiness with the
way that it felt it had been outmanouevered.

Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, refused numerous
opportunities to say the UN, Brahimi or Annan
'welcomed' the decision. Instead he said they
'respected' it. 'I want to stick very carefully to the
wording,' Eckhard said.

The messy announcement is not simply a question of
amour propre for the UN. British officials regarded it
as crucial in persuading ordinary Iraqis that a
dramatic change was in train with the transfer of
sovereignty. Many observers now fear that yet another
critical opportunity has been thrown away.


<http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4935708-103550,00.html >



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