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One contender to be leader of a post-Saddam Iraq has said the UN has a limited role in the future of Iraq. Ahmed Chalabi, the Head of Iraqi National Congress, said the Iraqi people view the UN as allies of Saddam. He was interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby: Jonathan Dimbleby: "You say that the United Nations should be kept out of this… but that suggests that you think that Britain and America are wrong to say that the UN should have a vital role in this process?" Ahmed Chalabi: "I that the UN has a limited role in Iraq. They have...

REBUILDING PLAN AGREED Free Iraqis have drawn up a 13-point plan to rebuild their country following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. The plan was agreed at US-hosted talks at Ur, the birthplace of the biblical prophet Abraham. The delegates also voted to meet again in 10 days' time. In a statement they said a future Iraqi government must be democratic, no leader must be imposed from outside, and the Baath party must be dissolved. As the meeting began, hundreds marched through the streets of nearby Nasiriyah protesting about US involvement in their country's future. They were concerned that the...

This may be a vanity, but I think FR can make an exception. The easiest way to lose the peace in Iraq would be to turn the country over to the UN and the Axis Of Weasels. Alas that is exactly what the anti-America wackos, our friends in the so-called peace movement want to do next. They want to get rid of Jay Garner and the U.S military. Don't let them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for us. Please give this website a good Freeping. Thanks.

Iraq Interim Head: Nation Could Be The Richest In Region - NYT NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Iraq could be the richest country in the Middle East within a few years after the nation's political and economic structures are remade, the retired U.S. general who will run post-war Iraq for the Bush administration said in an interview published in Tuesday's editions of the New York Times. Oil will be the basis of new wealth in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner said. "In the next few years they will be able to double, triple their production of oil. They may become the richest...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Teams of U.S. Marines looked "for unauthorized weapons" and people "not friendly to the United States" in a search Tuesday at a Baghdad hotel that is a home base for many journalists, a military source told CNN's Michael Holmes.

10 die as US troops open fire 15/04/2003 13:56 - (SA) Mosul - United States troops opened fire on a crowd hostile to the new pro-US governor in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring as many as 100, said witnesses and doctors. The incident overshadowed the start of US-brokered talks aimed at sketching out a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and was sure to ignite anti-US sentiment sparked in protests in Baghdad and at the talks in the southern city of Nasiriyah. Witnesses reported that US troops had fired into a crowd that...

April 15, 2003 G.I.'s and Iraqis Patrol Together to Bring OrderBy IAN FISHER and JOHN KIFNER AGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 — Order took a slightly firmer hold on Baghdad today as American soldiers and a few Iraqi police officers patrolled the capital's devastated streets together for the first time, but looting, shooting and burning continued almost a week after Saddam Hussein's government fell. A few more shops reopened, though many had little to sell, and more cars plowed through intersections where the stoplights were still dead. There were fewer looters, but also much less to loot. In this moment between...

April 15, 2003 For Many Iraqis, an American Patrol Is a Welcome SightBy MICHAEL R. GORDON AGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 — For three weeks, Lt. Col. Rock Marcone's armored battalion led the way as the Army clawed a path to Baghdad. But when 3-69 Armor rumbled into the Iraqi capital today, it had an entirely different mission: providing security for thousands of residents alarmed by the breakdown of order. In their first day on patrol, the battalion's soldiers raided a local headquarters of the Special Republican Guard, detained five of its staff members, and located a cache of rocket-propelled...

April 15, 2003 U.S. Overseer Set to Remake IraqBy JANE PERLEZ UWAIT, April 14 — The retired American general who will run post-war Iraq for the Bush administration flew to Iraq today on a mission to remake the country's politics, a process he predicted would be messy and contentious. But Lt. Gen. Jay Garner insisted that American-style democracy could sprout on the shards of President Saddam Hussein's government. "I don't think they had a love-in when they had Philadelphia" in 1787, he said in an interview here before his departure. "Anytime you start the process it's fraught with dialogue, tensions,...

US military troops were packing up Patriot anti-missile batteries in Israel on Monday, a day after Israeli officials said there was no longer a threat of an Iraqi missile attack. Before the war in Iraq, the US military stationed Patriot batteries near Israeli population centers, to boost Israel's air defenses in the event of an Iraqi missile attack. Israel's defense ministry lowered the state of alert in the country on Sunday, noting that the US military was in control of areas of Iraq closest to Israel. On Monday, US troops stationed in Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, were seen lowering...

Stirrings Of Political Life Evident In Baghdad Monday BAGHDAD (AP)--Angry, chanting men shouted their disgust with the U.S. Religious and civilian leaders jammed tables together for a first makeshift meeting on Baghdad's problems. Radio and television geared up to go back on air. Amid midnight gunbattles and midday looting, political life was stirring at last in the Iraqi capital Monday, five days after U.S. tanks took control. Grassroots clerics, returned exiles and the U.S. military began to piece together the first elements of a civil administration to replace the ousted Baath Party regime. There will be "no Sunni, no Shiite,...

BEIRUT: Following the assassination of cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei in Iraq Thursday, inter-Shiite rivalry continued as a group of armed Shiites demanded Sunday that top cleric Ali Sistani leave the country by Tuesday, or face attack. “We are investing intensive efforts and making contacts with Shiite factions around the world to try to defuse this problem, protect Sayyed (Sistani) and let him remain in Najaf,” Mourtada Kashmiri, Sistani’s representative told The Daily Star in a phone interview from London. Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, son of late cleric Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr who was assassinated in 1999, surrounded Sistani’s house and ordered him...

U.S. Interview Iraqi Nuclear Scientist By JOHN J. LUMPKIN .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - An Iraqi nuclear scientist has surrendered to authorities in a Middle Eastern country and is being interviewed by American officials, a U.S. official said Monday. Jafar Jafar is believed to know key people and locations of facilities connected to Iraq's nuclear weapons program, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official declined to specify what country was holding him. He voluntarily turned himself in sometime during the last few days, the official said. He is the second high-level Iraqi scientist reported...

Editorial: Astounds and Shocks15 April 2003 As Iraqi policemen gradually respond to calls from the US military to return to work and help ensure security in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, it still astounds and shocks how little the US planned for the aftermath of war. If the chaos and looting stops in the next few days, it will be forgotten by the Iraqis; if not, they may well decide that they were better off under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, it raises the question of what else the Americans failed to factor into their invasion; what else is...

By DIANA ELIAS, Associated Press Writer KUWAIT CITY - The three top Shiite Muslim clerics threatened by a mob in Iraq (news - web sites)'s holy city of Najaf were safe Monday after intervention by tribal supporters, according to a cleric in Kuwait. "Yesterday afternoon, members of the central Euphrates tribes who support the religious leaders of Najaf entered the city and liberated it from Muktada's group," Sayyed Mohammed Baqer al-Mehri told The Associated Press. He said there was no fighting and that tribesmen's presence in the city designed as a show of support for the religious leaders. Al-Mehri, who...

The biggest Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group says it will boycott a US-hosted meeting of opposition factions on Tuesday. It also says it will not recognise a US-installed interim administration for Iraq. A senior leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Abdul Aziz Hakim, told a news conference on Monday his group would not be going to the meeting of US officials and Iraqi political parties opposed to ousted President Saddam Hussein in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. "We will not attend the meeting in Nasiriyah because the Iraqi people won't accept preparations for an administration...

Nizar Khazraji, a prominent Iraqi general who defected to the West, was assassinated Monday on his way to attend a U.S.-called meeting of opposition groups in the southern city of Nassiriya. Khazraji was sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein. In February last year, London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat quoted opposition sources in Syria as saying the US had chosen Khazraji to run Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam. The CIA was reported to have helped him escape to Kuwait from house arrest in Denmark, where prosecutors were investigating his alleged role in gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds....

LONDON, April 14 (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair was set to brief members of Britain's parliament Monday on the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rebuilding of Iraq before the House of Commons rises for an Easter break. Blair was to address parliament at 1:30 pm (1230 GMT) as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw continued a four-nation swing through the Gulf ahead of an EU summit in Athens on Wednesday. Straw's deputy for Middle East issues, Mike O'Brien, was meanwhile due Monday in Damascus, amid stern US warnings to Syria not to give safe haven to fleeing members of Saddam...

Blair sees Iraqi elections in little over a year LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday he hoped elections could be held in Iraq within a year of an interim authority being established. Reporting to parliament, Blair said once the military campaign was over, the United States and Britain would initially be responsible for Iraq's security and humanitarian needs. But he said "a few weeks after the end of the conflict," he wanted to see a broad-based Iraqi interim authority established. "Once established, the interim authority will progressively assume more of the functions of...

More than 2,000 Iraqi policemen reported for work in Baghdad yesterday as efforts were made to curb the looting and vandalism. Following American radio appeals, the officers arrived at the National Police College to register for work. Later American soldiers made their first joint patrol with Iraqi policemen. Two marine Humvees accompanied five Iraqi police cars through the eastern part of the capital. Yet this largely symbolic start to a crackdown on lawlessness has made little difference so far. Baghdad normally has 40,000 police and it will be some time before all of the new volunteers are deployed on the...