Free Republic

A Cleric Assumes a Bully PulpitBy CHARLIE LeDUFF UT, Iraq, April 18 - Try as they might, the American military commanders here cannot outfox Sayed Abbas. Mr. Abbas, 52, was the first to arrive at city hall last week after Kut fell to the Americans. A Shiite Muslim preacher, he immediately declared himself the elected mayor of the city, though no election seems to have taken place. He has taken up residence amid the chandeliers, marble and mahogany of city hall and is surrounded by legions of zealous supporters, an exclusively male population that grows larger by the day. The...

DHAKA, Apr 17, 2003 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Bangladesh wants central role of the United Nations for an interim administration in Iraq for conducting election, reconstruction and medical assistance, Foreign Secretary Shamsher M. Chowdhury said here Thursday. While briefing newsmen, he said Bangladesh is closely watching the outcome of the meeting of EU leaders in Athens. Responding to a question about US threat on Syria, he said " Bangladesh cannot accept the concept of preemptive action any where."

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Kurdish leader urged the United States in an interview published on Monday to grant Iraqis control of their country as soon as possible or face increasing resistance as an occupying power. "No people in the world want to remain occupied...If they stay for a long time and act like occupiers, then they will face resistance," Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told the pan-Arab Al Hayat daily. "But if they act as promised and help rebuild a federal Iraq, then things will be different," he said. Barzani is the leader of one of...

<p>UNITED NATIONS - Crippling sanctions on war-torn Iraq cannot be lifted yet because United Nations resolutions require that weapons inspectors first verify that Iraq is free of banned deadly weapons, Security Council diplomats said yesterday.</p> <p>The UN sanctions on Iraq, mandated by a series of resolutions passed since the 1991 Gulf War, restrict both the flow of goods into the country as well as the sale of Iraqi oil, a combination that could stall efforts to rebuild the country. The embargo was intended to punish Saddam Hussein's regime, but it legally applies to anyone now in charge of Iraq, UN diplomats say.</p>

One of three regional rulers in the post-Saddam Iraq is an unlikely candidate raising some alarms in the intelligence community. Barbara Bodine Her name is Barbara Bodine, a career foreign-service diplomat and former ambassador to Yemen. She will reportedly run civilian affairs in Baghdad and central Iraq along with two other regional administrators. Why the controversy? In 2000, while serving as Yemen's ambassador, she was widely criticized for hampering the FBI's investigation of the al-Qaida bombing of the USS Cole in Aden. She blocked FBI counterterrorism official John O'Neill from returning to Yemen and conducting an aggressive investigation. O'Neill retired...