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."
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central