"Full Sovereignty for Iraq on June 30"

Shahristani to Be Named Iraq Premier, U.S. Sources Say

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By Carol Giacomo and Saul Hudson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United Nations (news - web sites) is expected to pick Hussain Shahristani, a Shi'ite Muslim nuclear scientist who spent 11 years in Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), as premier of a new interim Iraqi government, U.S. sources said on Tuesday.

A State Department official said Shahristani was one of three finalists being considered for the key post but other sources said Shahristani was expected to head the new caretaker government when the United States hands over power on July 1.


Asked if U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had made his choices, one source with close ties to the Bush administration told Reuters: "Shahristani for prime minister."


The State Department official said: "He is one of about three finalists who was being considered for prime minister. I do not know whether he was chosen and actually asked."


"It's pretty obvious it has to be a Shi'ite. It also has to be someone who is not seen to be beholden any particular faction or party and yet not be so much of a technocrat that he has no standing with the parties," he said.


Shahristani fit that profile, he added.


Another U.S. source said he expected Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni Muslim and one-time Iraqi foreign minister, to be president.


Vice presidential choices are expected to be Ibrahim Jaafari, a medical doctor who is spokesman of the Dawa Party, and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, although it is unclear if Talabani would take the job, the source said.


BRAHIMI CHOICES


The slate of leaders to head the interim government that will administer Iraq (news - web sites) until elections planned for January 2005 is being put together by Brahimi, special envoy of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), with the close assistance of Robert Blackwill, President Bush (news - web sites)'s special adviser on Iraq.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "Mr. Brahimi will make an announcement when he is ready. It is my understanding that he has not made a final decision on those recommendations at this time."


U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte, who will be the new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad after June 30, declined to comment when asked about Shahristani.


"What do you expect me to say? ... I can't, can't" comment, he told reporters at the State Department.


Brahimi "has talked to a lot of people," Negroponte said.


Shahristani was tortured and imprisoned by Saddam after refusing to work on Iraq's nuclear weapons program.


In a February 2003 interview on CNN, Shahristani said the Iraqi president was hiding weapons of mass destruction underneath the ground in tunnels.


Bush cited Saddam's weapons of mass destruction as a prime reason for the Iraq war but none have been found.





In a January 2003 interview with Canadian Television, Shahristani criticized Bush's father for abandoning Iraq's Shi'ite population after the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) when he urged them to rise up and overthrow Saddam.

FIRM VIEWS

"If anybody expects these people to forget all these sufferings and welcome any invading force with open arms to come and loot their oil, I think they are terribly mistaken," Shahristani said in that interview.

More recently, in a February 2004 article in the Wall Street Journal, he sided with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, on the issue of elections and questioned whether Washington "understands the Iraqi reality."

At the United Nations, Annan briefed Security Council ambassadors on Brahimi's work, but gave no names of who would be in the new government.

Diplomats said they questioned Annan on how credible the list would be among 20 million Iraqis. They also suggested the new interim government should come to New York before a U.S.-British drafted new Security Council resolution was adopted.

Asked if Brahimi's difficulties would delay an announcement by the end of May, Annan said, "We had indicated that our target date was the end of May, and obviously we are still working toward that date. I hope we will be able to meet that target."

The resolution presented to the Security Council members on Monday is an integral part of Bush's plan for stabilizing Iraq and creating a democratic state there. Bush, facing plunging poll numbers at home in an election year, is striving to gain greater international support for that plan.

It would endorse the formation of a sovereign interim Iraqi government but allow U.S.-led forces to take "all necessary measures" to keep the peace. (Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Evelyn Leopold)

Yeah----I couldn't believe it but you're correct Sophia------------------------19,884---wow

Mr Stillwater (could you please remove the 'Mr' from in front of your name. The last person on earth I wish to sound anything like is mporter)

I have written to my Member of Parliament and expressed my utter dismay, indeed, my outrage, at the thought I will be restricted in speech acts which demean conservatives when they engage in anal sex.

Canadians are evil, and proud of it. We did invent funnel cake after all.

Cav

You have perhaps noted that I do not respond to anything mporter has to say. What you can't see is that I don't actually even read a word of it. But once, we had a vital, zesty and athletic sexual relationship. He loved to have me lather his pink body with slippery oils and to have me tease his secret parts with rose petals and motorcycle chains. Sure, he played tough and manly..."I wanna be on top. I wanna be on top.", but we both knew it was pretence.

I knew it blatham! That P.I. was worth every penny.

Go funnel cake!

cav, At least you canuks ain't claiming the invention of baked Alaska. LOL

Well, it is all well and good to make fun of people who protest the Canadian Bill C-250. It is evil, according to John Leo's column in the US News and World Report of April 19, 2004, to even discuss gay people in academic surroundings. The idiocy that calls academic study "denigration" is just the type of nonsense that we are getting from certain circles in Canada.

Leo reports that "Robert Spitzer of Columbia University, a long time SUPPORTER of gay rights and an important figure in the American Psychiatric Association, published a study finding that many gays can become heterosexual" Would that study be banned under C-250 as "hate speech"? And since C-250 does not mention homosexuality but focuses broadly on "sexual orientation", Canada's freewheeling judiciary may explicitly extend protection to many "sexual minorities". Pedophilia and Sadism are among the conditions listed by the APA under "sexual orientation"

I am sure that the rights of Pedophiliacs must be protected. Or it seems so in Canada. A country from which come people who have the effrontery to lecture a people which at least, has a First Amendment protecting "Free Speech".

Mr. Blatham says he taught elementary school>

He apparently feels that he is still lecturing his eight year olds. As a person who has taught on the University level, I can tell you that there is no one as pathetic and as self deluded as a male teacher in an elementary school.
People unfit for higher levels of education are assigned to the baby sitting chores in the elementary schools. That is why Mr. Blatham is so pompous and condescending. He thinks he is still in front of his eight year olds!!!

Did that happen recently

No, that was indeed invented by Alaskans, but it will be claimed as an American invention when they bomb those pesky Alaskan seperatists into submission .

You know, the last thing I want to read about on this board is a couple of flaming Canadian homo- - -

REMAINDER OF SPIDERBOT'S POST CENSORED BY BILL C-250

TAKE OFF, YOU HOSER, EH?

Tarantulas- They say that Patriotism is the last refuge of Scoundrels. It would seem that filthy stupidity like the crap written by Mr. Blatham is the last refuge of former elementary school teachers who do not have the ability to rebut the arguments of their opponents.
Mr. Blatham says he taught elementary school. It would appear that his thinking is at the elementary school level still.--"sexual relationship"

"motorcycle chains" What adolescent crap!!!!!!

Anything to avoid facing the fact of being so arrogant or slipshod that he would say( on May 14th 2004 )on one of these posts:

"Well, since you reference a Time issue which apparently does not exist"

It is evident that his attempt to denigrate me with childish nonsense as that written above about "motorcycle chains" is a desperate attempt to avoid facing the fact that He was wrong and is too insecure to admit it. I feel sorry for him.

There is nothing sadder than a male elementary school teacher who thinks he really knows a great deal but, in reality, knows very little. Male elementary school teachers acquire their pretentious facade of omnescience because they think they are still lecturing their eight year olds,mouths all agape, when they write on these posts.

The poor man doesn't realize that he is no longer a teacher of eight year olds and that he cannot say, as I am sure he said in his class--"Well, since you reference a Time issue which does not exist" and not have someone come back at him and rub his nose in it.

* hangs head in shame *

I completely screwed up the quotes, so I went back and fixed my post. As for the "flaming" term, it doesn't refer to internet message board arguments. It means something a little different in the gay world.

Oh, I know that. I just wanted to point out your error, and no problem. :wink:

I wonder if Mr. Blatham ever lectured his eight year olds on the evils found in the United States.

That might be the reason we are getting so many recalcitrant Candians in the MidWest. Why, Mayo Clinic is filled with them.

When I spoke to one a year ago at the Mayo Clinic and asked why they came to the USA for Medical treatment since I had heard that the Canadian medical system was much much better than the system in the USA, he said that he couldn't wait much longer for his by-pass and he was afraid that he would expire if he did not have one done ASAP.

I went to the Mayo clinic once for a problem, and they just told me "Stop eating mayo."

Ha ha- Is that the best you can do. My reference to the Mayo Clinic was to show that the Socialist Medical System in Canada is a broken down wreck.
I would expect nothing but the best from a country that has so many know it alls telling the USA what to do.

Maybe the Candians are coming to the Mayo clinic cos they ate too much candy and Mayo?