Free Republic

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The leading candidate in a Shi'ite alliance expected to dominate Iraq's January 30 elections says that majority Shi'ites will not be dragged into a civil war despite a series of bloody attacks on them. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told Reuters in an interview on Saturday that al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading a campaign to try to divide Shi'ites and Sunnis but would not succeed. "We are strongly standing in the face of this evil plan and any sectarian sedition," Hakim said. Hakim survived an...

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russian companies are prepared to invest as much as $4 billion in Iraq and expect to be active in rebuilding the country. At the start of talks in Moscow Monday with the current head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, Mr. Putin noted that Moscow and Baghdad have historically had good relations and he expects those relations to continue. Mr. al-Hakim leads a delegation from Iraq's Governing Council that is meeting with Mr. Putin and other top Russian officials. The discussions will include the Iraqi debt to Moscow and Iraq's existing multi-billion-dollar contracts with...

<p>Iraq's American-backed administration failed in its first week to choose a president, abandoning that mission in favor of a weak, three-man rotating leadership. The top U.S. official in Iraq -- who hand-picked the Governing Council -- returned to Washington while an insurgency killed another American soldier Saturday.</p>