By Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press, 7/30/2003

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BAGHDAD, Iraq -- After weeks of struggling to choose a leader, Iraq's American-picked interim government Wednesday named its first president -- a Shiite Muslim from a political party banned by Saddam Hussein. He will be the first of nine men serving one-month rotations leading postwar Iraq.

Selecting a president had been a contentious issue as ethnic and political groups wrestled for a share of the power. In the end, the 25-member Governing Council decided to rotate the presidency alphabetically among nine members chosen Tuesday.

The council will name Cabinet members, control spending and set in place the mechanism for writing a new Iraqi constitution. A council source told The Associated Press that a Cabinet will be named in the coming days.

After the council meeting in Baghdad's Convention Center, a member lashed out at Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa for failing to recognize the interim government's authority and said the council would not send representatives to the Cairo, Egypt-based organization, the region's most important political body.

"We don't want to go where we are not welcome," council member Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi told Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite network.

Moussa, in an interview with CNN from the United Nations, stood by his assessment of the council, saying it was "a step in the right direction" but not representative of the Iraqi people.

"We want them (the Americans) also to know that this is an abnormal situation and cannot continue in this way," Moussa said.

It was unclear whether he knew of the council's decision to boycott the Arab League.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim and chief spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party, will serve as council president for August. The party once was based in neighboring Iran.

The council began functioning July 13 and said its first order of business was selecting a president. But it was unable to agree on giving that much power to one member, so it decided Tuesday to share the responsibility among nine.

"The council is made up of different political parties, with different agendas, different ethnic groups. There was no agreement among the members as to the agenda of any one party or among the varying ethnic groups," said Adel Nouri, a senior member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union Party.

Members of the council met with World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who said the institution must first decide what constitutes a legally recognized government before it can lend money to Iraq for its reconstruction.

"Clearly a constitution and an elected government would constitute a recognized government, but what do we do in the meantime?" Wolfensohn said. "It's a subject that needs interpretation."

Twenty of the council's 25 members supported the nine-person rotating chief executive, said Nouri Al-Badran, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord, a party represented on the council.

"The council is a large body and the presidential committee will represent all sections of Iraqi society," he said.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq who shepherded the council into existence through weeks of intense negotiations, attended the session Wednesday after returning from Washington for consultations.

The council decision came a day after an audiotape attributed to Saddam said it was "good news" that his sons Odai and Qusai Hussein were killed in a July 22 shootout with U.S. forces because they now were martyrs. The tape appeared to erase any remaining doubt among Iraqis that the feared brothers were dead.

A CIA official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the tape appeared to be authentic.

In northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said they found evidence that non-Iraqi fighters are among guerrillas attacking Americans. The officials said on condition of anonymity they were finding rocket-propelled grenades wired to timers, a weapon used against coalition forces by insurgents in Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist organization and remnants of the Taliban are believed responsible for the continued attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But it was unclear what role the foreigners were playing in the insurgency in Iraq that has killed 49 American soldiers since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over.

In Saddam's hometown, Tikrit, the American military continued questioning suspects and poring over documents and photo albums seized in a Tuesday raid, looking for clues to Saddam's whereabouts.

Soldiers interrogated one of Saddam's main bodyguards, his Tikrit security chief and a militia leader, who is believed to be behind attacks on U.S. troops, Maj. Bryan Luke said. The captives were not forthcoming.

"Every time we ask them a question, we get a different answer," Luke said. "They're not cooperating."

American forces in both the Mosul and Tikrit regions have intensified the search for Saddam, who is believed to be changing locations frequently.

"It would not be a good idea for him to be stationary for very long," said Lt. Col. Ted Martin, 42, of Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

"Every time a helicopter flies over, I bet they shake," Martin, the 4th Infantry Division operations officer, told The Associated Press in Tikrit.

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Associated Press reporters Matt Moore near the Syrian border in northern Iraq and D'Arcy Doran in Tikrit contributed to this report.