Iyad Allawi, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party who worked with the CIA to topple him, was chosen as prime minister of Iraq on Friday in an announcement that caught US and UN officials off guard.
The US-selected Iraqi Governing Council agreed by consensus to name Allawi to take over from US-led occupation authorities on June 30 and lead his country to its first free elections next year.
UN and US officials in New York and in Washington appeared surprised by the announcement. Some questioned whether UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, charged with fashioning the Iraqi interim government, was part of the decision-making process.
"It's not how we expected it to happen," chief UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.
But Eckhard said that "Mr. Brahimi respects the decision and is prepared to work with this person on the selection of the other posts in this interim government."
UN sources said the names of an interim president and two vice presidents could be announced as early as this weekend.
Allawi, a long exiled neurologist and businessman from Iraq's long-oppressed majority Shi'ite community, will be joined in the 30-member interim government by Sunni Muslims, Kurds and representatives of Iraq's other minorities.
Brahimi has been in Iraq for the past three weeks consulting with Iraqi factions and the provisional authority on the composition of the new government due to take over when the Governing Council is dissolved at the end of June.
Eckhard told reporters that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also respected the choice of Allawi and the word "respect" had been "carefully chosen."
"I assume this choice will hold, but the process isn't over yet," he said. "Let's wait to see what the Iraqi street has to say about this name."
Brahimi would now sit down with Allawi and discuss the other names that had emerged from his consultations, with an eye to choosing candidates for president, vice president and a Cabinet.
Brahimi was not expected to return to New York from Iraq for another week or 10 days to brief the Security Council on the new government's composition.
The choice of Allawi appeared to surprise the Bush administration, which is struggling to find a credible Iraqi leadership as it tries to end deadly attacks that have derailed efforts to stabilize the country in the year since the US-led invasion.
Asked if he could confirm Allawi would be the new prime minister, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters early on Friday, "We have no position on any candidate at this moment because we are waiting to hear from Ambassador Brahimi and he needs time to complete his work."
Six hours after the announcement, an official in US President George W. Bush's administration said: "We thought [Allawi] would be an excellent prime minister ... I think that this is going to work."
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS