Iraq president chosen as council steps aside

BAGHDAD -- A Sunni tribal chief who spent more than a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia was named president of Iraq yesterday, and the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council dissolved itself as a new interim government took office.

Iraq's new leaders, President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, said their top priority would be to restore security and unite Iraqis across ethnic and religious lines.

In the first sign that the balance of power would start shifting away from the US occupation authority, which retains control until June 30, the caretaker government's leaders said they would push for far more authority than American officials had initially hoped to surrender.

"We, like other people, do not want to continue to be under occupation," Allawi said, adding that the new foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, was immediately dispatched to United Nations headquarters in New York to push for a new Security Council resolution that would bring "fairness and legitimacy in Iraq."

Hours before the ceremony to announce the new government, a suicide bomber struck near the event. The blast, at the Baghdad headquarters of a Kurdish political party, killed three people. Elsewhere in the city, explosions and gunfire rang out across the Green Zone headquarters of the occupation authority, as Iraqi, US, and UN dignitaries prepared for the ceremony.

The caretaker government, welcomed by President Bush, took over from the Governing Council amid questions of how much control it will have over its own security forces and how much input it will have in the command of the 151,000 coalition soldiers that will still be stationed in Iraq.

The leaders of the new government were named following heated negotiations among US, UN, and Governing Council officials, first over the selection of a prime minister and then over the choice for president.

The selection of Yawer as president, a largely ceremonial post, wasn't settled until yesterday morning. Officially, UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had a free hand to choose the caretaker government after consulting with Iraqis and Americans, but neither Allawi nor Yawer was his first choice, members of the Governing Council said.

Yawer, 45, has taken outspoken stands against the United States, most notably last week when he attacked the draft UN resolution submitted by Washington for giving too little control to Iraqis. Educated in Saudi Arabia and at Georgetown University, Yawer has won a strong following among Iraqi Governing Council members and with some occupation officials. They hope he can effectively calm security problems because of his family's authority as leaders of the Shammar tribe, which includes Shi'ite and Sunni clans in every area of the country.

He is the only member of the new government to wear traditional tribal dress; yesterday, he gave his first speech in his usual headwear and a stately white robe with gold trim.

"We, the Iraqis, also look forward to being granted full sovereignty, through a Security Council resolution, to enable us to rebuild a free, independent, democratic, and federal unified homeland," Yawer told reporters.

Yawer and Allawi both served on the Governing Council, an American-appointed body with little grass-roots support or credibility among Iraqis, but which proved surprisingly strong in the last week in shaping its successor interim government.

Allawi, head of the CIA-funded Iraqi National Accord, is a former Ba'athist who quit the party in the 1970s and survived an assassination attempt.

He named a government of 30 ministers -- only two of whom served on the Governing Council -- that seeks to keep a delicate balance among Iraq's ethnic groups and political parties. Yawer has two vice presidents: Ibrahim Al Jaafari, head of the religious Shi'ite Da'wa Party, and Rowsch Shaways, a senior official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Kurds had lobbied for one of the top posts, and Shaways suggested that every group had to give something up.

"The current formation may not necessarily represent all of the components and shades of the Iraqi society and people, and does not respond fully to all the desires of the Arabs and the Kurds and other ethnic groups," he said.

Allawi -- a Shi'ite who is known for his secular views -- also named a Kurdish deputy from the ethnic group's other major party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Absent from the ceremony was Ahmed Chalabi, a former favorite of the Pentagon who has now lost support. The New York Times, citing US intelligence officials, reports today that Chalabi told an Iranian official in Baghdad that the United States had broken the communications code of Iran's intelligence service.

American officials were tipped off to Chalabi's disclosure when the Iranian official sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Chalabi, using the broken code, that was in turn intercepted by the United States, the intelligence officials told the newspaper.

Brahimi officially announced the leaders of the government at a ceremony in a building that was once the Saddam Hussein Museum and housed gifts given to the ousted leader as well as exhibits about his life and Iraq's wars.

In an appeal to the Iraqi people, he said of their new leaders: "Give them a chance. Help them. Judge them after looking at their progress and the actions they take."

Some of the leaders appointed to the new government acknowledged yesterday that the caretaker leadership has a long way to go before winning popular trust. Most of all, said the minister of industry and minerals, Hachem Al Hassani, it should focus on its main mandate: elections planned for the end of January.

"There is no way you can get real representation except in democratic elections," Hassani said. "But this is wider representation than the Governing Council."

Bush praised the new Iraqi government yesterday and tried to distance himself from the selection process.

"I had no role in picking, zero," Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden press conference. When asked about his confidence in the new leaders, he said: "I am confident, but time will tell if the leaders turn out to be as capable and strong as Mr. Brahimi thinks they will be."

Bush called the interim government "a team that possesses the talent, commitment, and the resolve to guide Iraq through the challenges that lie ahead," and said he looks forward to a "close relationship" with Allawi.

He noted that Allawi had thanked the American people yesterday for their help in freeing Iraq. Still, Bush mentioned the steady current of violence in Iraq, which will challenge the new government in its effort to establish credibility and take control.

Regular suicide bombings and other attacks have kept occupation forces and Iraqi security services on high alert. Yesterday, in addition to the attack on the PUK headquarters in Baghdad, a bombing in Beiji, north of Baghdad, killed 11. In an assessment echoed by Bush, Iraq's new leaders said they expected violence to continue, even after the interim government assumes full sovereignty on June 30.

"I don't think they are going to stop," said Mowaffak Al Rubaie, who will continue in his current position as national security adviser, referring to the insurgents. He blamed the attacks on "antidemocratic forces."

"Now they are fighting the occupying power," he said. "After June 30 what will be their excuse?"

In his first public remarks as prime minister, he vowed to deal with security problems, unemployment, and deficits in basic services like electricity, water, and sewage. He also struck a conciliatory note toward the United States, which intends to keep its 138,000 troops in the country. "We need the presence of multinational forces to defeat the enemies of Iraq," he said.

Farah Stockman of the Globe Staff contributed to this report from Washington, and Anne Barnard from Baghdad.