Iraqis row with US, UN over new president

Iraqi leaders rounded on the United States and United Nations yesterday for blocking their choice of a president to succeed Saddam Hussein when the US occupation authority is wound up in a month's time.

Deadlock set in on Sunday after a prime minister and key cabinet posts were broadly agreed, prompting US officials to ask the Iraqi Governing Council to put off until today further talks on filling the largely ceremonial post of head of state.

The US-appointed Council favours its present leader, Ghazi Yawar, a prominent tribal leader with support from various ethnic and religious groups. Council members said US governor Paul Bremer and UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi were pressuring them to back Adnan Pachachi, an 81-year-old former foreign minister.

"There's quite a lot of interference. They should let the Iraqis decide for themselves. This is an Iraqi affair," Mahmoud Othman, a Kurd on the 22-member Council, told Reuters.

"We were hoping that this government would have some legitimacy," said Jawad al-Boulani, an aide to religious Shi'ite Council member Abdulkarim al-Muhammadawi. "But if the government is formed in this way the Iraqi people will reject it."

Several Iraqis said they believed US officials may try to break the deadlock by suggesting a compromise third candidate.

Violence poses the greatest challenge to the new interim government's prime task of holding Iraq's first free elections in the new year. Two US soldiers and close to 20 Shi'ite militiamen were killed in sharp skirmishing near Najaf, the fourth day of clashes since the militia leader offered a truce.

A speeding car bomb killed at least two people on a busy Baghdad street not far from the new prime minister-designate's office. Dutch troops were close by when a van exploded in the southern city of Samawa and a mortar attack struck the offices of a Kurdish political party at Arbil, in the north of Iraq.

US and UN officials have declined comment on the process of agreeing the government and presidency beyond saying that it is a broad consultative process not confined to the Governing Council. The body was appointed by the US occupying power a year ago and is regarded by many Iraqis with suspicion.

The Governing Council caught Mr Brahimi off-guard on Friday by announcing the nomination to the top job of prime minister of Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite member of the Council who worked with the CIA from exile to overthrow Saddam. Mr Brahimi and the White House later said they endorsed the appointment.

Despite Mr Brahimi's suggestion some weeks ago that he would prefer to see an interim government of apolitical technocrats, the Council appears set on naming many of its own members to the new administration that will supersede its role on June 30.