Interim Iraq leader is chosen

BAGHDAD -- Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite Muslim physician who tried to organize a CIA-backed coup against Saddam Hussein in 1996, has been chosen to lead the new Iraqi government when it takes power in a month, Iraqi and US officials involved in the selection process said yesterday.

Allawi, who has criticized occupation authorities for disbanding the Iraqi Army and purging low-level members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, had emerged Thursday as the choice of United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who consulted with thousands of Iraqis, a senior US official in Baghdad said. He was endorsed unanimously yesterday by the US-appointed Governing Council.

Allawi spent 33 years in exile, led an opposition party with close US ties, and is now a prominent member of the Governing Council. Choosing him as interim leader risks alienating the many Iraqis who do not want the new government to be dominated by people who lived outside the country during Saddam Hussein's regime. And the way his selection was announced -- not by the UN envoy brought in as an outside mediator, but by the council, which is widely seen as a group of US-backed politicians who want to hold onto power -- raised further questions about whether Iraqis would view it as legitimate.

But Iraqi and US officials, as well as independent observers, said Allawi was a credible consensus candidate, as a longstanding Hussein opponent and a secular member of the Shi'ite majority who lobbied for support from Iraq's complicated ethnic and religious mix of Sunni and Shi'ites, Arabs and Kurds. Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has derailed a series of US proposals for the handoff to an Iraqi government, indicated that he would not object to Allawi, an aide to a Governing Council member said.

And as the top security official on the council, Allawi was seen as capable of quelling the violence in Iraq, the new government's top priority.

''It boils down to who's willing to be ruthless, frankly. That's what this country needs, it needs a strong leader who's willing to take action and make difficult decisions to bring this country under control," said Musab Alkateeb, an adviser to defense minister Ali Allawi, a relative of Iyad Allawi.

Brahimi apparently chose Allawi on Thursday, and the Governing Council endorsed him at a meeting yesterday afternoon in Baghdad. But the timing of the announcement took some US and UN officials in New York and Washington by surprise, stirring speculation that the council had preempted Brahimi by making public the nomination.

''It's not how we expected it to happen, no, but the Iraqis seem to agree on this candidate," said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan. He said Brahimi had been expected to announce the full government once he had settled on recommendations for the remaining posts -- two vice presidents, a deputy prime minister, and 26 ministers -- which he plans to do by early next week.

The UN's Eckhard left open the possibility that the choice could change in the coming days if it is widely rejected by the Iraqi public. ''Let's wait and see what the Iraqi street has to say about this," he said. ''If the announcement does not have the broad support of the Iraqis, it's not going to fly."

The US official in Baghdad suggested that Brahimi had already taken Iraqi public into account in his consultations. Allawi ''is going to be the prime minister," he said.

But administration officials in Washington early in the day declined to welcome the appointment or even confirm that it was final, and signaled that they would not comment until Brahimi reveals the full slate of appointees. The overall mix is key because of demands from groups such as the Kurds -- among the staunchest supporters of the United States' war against Hussein -- that their representatives get top posts.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters in Washington yesterday that he was ''pleased that Mr. Allawi has that kind of support," but that he was waiting for final word from Brahimi.

President Bush reiterated his promise of ''complete and full sovereignty" for an Iraqi government ''that will be picked by Mr. Brahimi of the United Nations," making no mention of Allawi by name. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Allawi ''is certainly a fine and capable leader who appears to have broad support among the Iraqi people. But I want to be respectful of that process, and we'll wait till we hear more from Mr. Brahimi."

Some saw the early announcement -- and the attempt to portray Allawi as a Governing Council choice -- as a bid by the council members to hold onto power.

''The Governing Council has decided to nominate their own, somebody from the group rather than to have a total outsider," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst specializing in Iraq at the National Defense University. ''It gives them a way to maintain control."

Council members said it was a way to give Iraqis a more prominent voice in drawing up the UN Security Council resolution that will determine how much power the new government has over the US forces that will remain on its soil. Allawi's spokesman, Ibrahim al-Janabi, said in an interview yesterday that he would negotiate hard to make sure his government has full sovereignty.

Dr. Sadoun Dulame, a pollster and director of the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, said Allawi's approval ratings, like those of most politicians, have never risen above the single digits. He noted that Allawi holds British citizenship and is a clear favorite of the United States.

''We want to know what does Iraqi citizenship mean?" Dulame said. At the same time, he said, he sees Allawi as preferable to two of the top alternatives -- the leaders of Iraq's two largest Shi'ite religious parties, which want to see a greater role for Islam in government. ''As we say in Arabic, one eye is better than blind."

''Any new government, even if it is nominated by Brahimi, will not have any credibility, because people have lost faith in everybody, starting with the Americans and ending with the Governing Council," said Sa'ad Jawad Abu Yassin, a political scientist at Baghdad University.

But given that the United States would only accept as prime minister a former exile leader with close ties to the West, he said, Allawi was the most acceptable to Iraqis because ''he has kept a low profile" and earned a reputation of being both honest and moderate.

A former Ba'ath Party member, Allawi fled Iraq in 1971 after becoming an opponent of the regime. He survived an assassination attempt in London in 1978, and in 1990 he started the Iraqi National Accord, a rival of the Iraqi National Congress founded by onetime Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi.

Some Iraqi officials pointed to the selection as a message to Ba'ath Party members who committed no crimes that they were welcome in Iraqi public life.

''He's not a Ba'athist, he's a patriot," said Governing Council spokesman Hamid al-Kifaey.

Allawi was involved in a failed CIA-backed coup attempt in 1996, and traveled to the United States in recent months to meet with CIA, White House, and National Security Council officials in his capacity as head of the Governing Council Security Committee.

Last fall, Allawi came under fire after the Associated Press reported that he was spending roughly $70,000 per month on US-based lobbyists.

Nick Theros, a Washington-based consultant for Allawi who is among those who received funds, said that Allawi's main goal was to reverse US policy on disbanding the Iraqi Army and ''to counter what he considered a badly implemented and too general de-Ba'athification campaign that was stripping Iraq of its civil bureaucracy."

''It turned out that Dr. Allawi was right about those issues," he said, citing the fact that the United States has begun to reintegrate former army officials and bureaucrats back into the system.

Iyad Allawi

1945 Born to Shi'ite family. Later trained in Britain as a neurologist, has lived in London for approximately the past 20 years.

1970s Fell out with Saddam Hussein, left Iraq.

1978 Survived assassination attempt, allegedly ordered by Hussein.

1990 Publicly acknowledged he was a cofounder of the Iraqi National Accord, a group of exiles backed by US and British intelligence that included many former military officers opposed to the Baghdad regime.

1996 Participated in a failed attempt by the CIA to overthrow Hussein.

2003 Headed a large Iraqi delegation to the International Donors Conference for the Reconstruction of Iraq, held in Spain.

Yesterday Governing Council announces he is choice to become prime minister.

Sources: GlobalSecurity.org, news reports