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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has chosen L. Paul Bremer, a former head of the State Department's counterterrorism office, to become civilian administrator in Iraq and oversee the country's transition to democratic rule. Bremer's selection, disclosed Wednesday by a senior U.S. official, will put him in charge of a transition team that includes retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner and Zalmay Khalilzad, the special White House envoy in the Persian Gulf region. Bremer left the State Department, where he was an assistant to former secretaries William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger, to join Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm...

Reuters, reporting on the results of the meeting of approximately 250 prominent Iraqis of various political and ethnic groupings, observed: "In a sign the transition to an interim government will be far from easy, delegates said splits emerged between returned Iraqi exiles and those who had lived through the Saddam years." Based on reports from the anti-war commentators I had been reading, about how the Iraqis were demanding that the Americans "Go Home," I assumed, naturally, that the split occurred because the Iraqi exiles, many of whom have been living in America, wanted more US involvement. It turns out the...

France has diplomat in Iraq once again - Villepin PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) - France, which like many other countries pulled its diplomats out of Iraq before U.S.-led forces attacked last month, again has an envoy in Baghdad, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Wednesday. Villepin told a news conference in Paris that a French diplomat, whom he did not name, had been in the Iraqi capital since Monday. "France wishes to be present alongside the Iraqi people," he said. France's charge d'affaires in Iraq, Andre Janier, had left the Iraqi capital on March 18, two days before the...

What we are witnessing in Baghdad is only the beginning of a long period of instability, marked by violence, civil strife, and internal hemorrhaging. STARTING OVER: An Iraqi shop owner speaks to American troops guarding the banking district of Baghdad, as other shopkeepers and residents look on, Sunday April 27, 2003. The people were requesting permission to enter the area to reopen their stores. The soldiers refusedto allow the residents to enter saying that the area was closed for security reasons. ================================================ "These are the model citizens of a future democratic Iraq?" That question must have pounded through the halls...

NEW DELHI APRIL 29. NDTV brings you a world exclusive from Baghdad. Did the people of Iraq welcome the American troops or not? Does the ordinary Iraqi want the Americans to stay or go back now that Saddam Hussein is dethroned? If Saddam Hussein is found do the people of Iraq want to see him punished or not? Is this war all about oil or not? With the embedded Western media being widely accused of bias there appear to be no reliable answers to many of these questions. In order to cut through the cacophony of opinions and views, NDTV...

Tue April 29, 2003 11:26 AM ET By Alan Elsner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some in the U.S. administration are pushing to invoke a controversial financial doctrine to free Iraq from a mountain of debt amassed by Saddam Hussein but if history is any indicator it appears unlikely. With Iraqi debt restructuring or forgiveness now a major issue in the effort to rebuild the country, the idea to declare the hundreds of billions of dollars owed to foreign creditors as "odious debt" is being promoted by some conservatives in the Bush administration. The "odious debt" doctrine holds that obligations incurred by...

QUM, Iran, April 26 — A black-turbaned Iraqi cleric, his belongings packed in a small blue bag sitting at his feet, led about 50 clerics in prayer. Kneeling on red Persian rugs, the men, many of whom who had spent the last two decades in Iran, gathered to catch the train that would take them to Iraq. "I am going first to Kazemein for a pilgrimage and then will go to Baghdad to find a home for my family," said Muhammad Hassani, a 52-year-old mid-ranking cleric, who had lived in Iran since 1980. Mr. Hassani, the father of 10, had...

Iraqi leaders agreed with the US administrator of Iraq yesterday to convene a conference within a month to form an interim administration to succeed Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. The decision was made in a show of hands at the end of a meeting in Baghdad of 250 prominent Iraqis, including members of the majority Shia community who ended their boycott of talks on the future of the country. "All efforts should be made to hold a national conference within four weeks . . . to select a transitional Iraqi government," they said in a statement read out at the end of...

April 28— By Rosalind Russell BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior U.S. military commander said on Monday there was no question of releasing Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, the self-proclaimed Baghdad mayor arrested on Sunday for exercising authority he did not have."He's not going to be released. He's a criminal," Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, told Reuters in the Iraqi capital."He's broken multiple laws, from theft to intimidation," Blount said, giving no details of any charges."Right now he's in a holding center and his movements will be decided in the next few days," the general added.U.S. Central Command...

Iraqi Delegates Gather for Gov't Talks By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent BAGHDAD, Iraq - Stressing unity in a divided land, more than 200 delegates from inside and outside Iraq (news - web sites) haggled Monday over Iraq's future, meeting in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s elaborate convention hall under the protection of a ring of U.S. tanks. Clear differences among the delegates emerged on the United States' involvement, with exiles generally seeking a diminished role for Washington. Elsewhere, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, thanking U.S. troops for removing Saddam: "You...

IRAQ lies in ruins this morning. Its cities are bombed; its buildings have been torched by teenage arsonists; its shops, hospitals, factories and homes have been looted. This is Year Zero for Iraq. The old regime is gone and the United States is to rebuild this country literally from the ground up. Since the beginning of the year, America has had its reconstruction plan in place. Answering directly to Centcom commander General Tommy Franks, retired Lt Gen Jay Garner will be in command of the reconstruction effort. He will be aided by a series of military hardmen, diplomats and Republican...

Up to 1 Million Iraqis May Get Pay This Week -U.S. Sun April 27, 2003 10:48 AM ET By Mona Megalli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Up to one million Iraqi civil servants returning to work under a U.S. civil administration could qualify for a one-off $20 payment each within a week, a U.S. official said on Sunday. Accountants from Saddam Hussein's former government were set to deliver documents on Monday that could allow payments to 650,000 workers, mainly in central Iraq, the official told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.S. briefing on the Iraqi economy. "That's a big bite of...

Footage of Iraqis toppling Saddam's statue in Baghdad got lots of media play, but footage of subsequent Iraqi discontent with U.S. occupation was invisible in a mainstream TV media bent on showing only what the Bush administration wants you to see.Did you see footage of the 300 Iraqi protesters who, for three days straight, demonstrated outside the U.S. military operations base in the Palestine Hotel, demanding that the U.S. leave Iraq? Or footage of the Army forcing the media away from the scene? How about footage of hundreds of Iraqis in the very square in Baghdad where Saddam's statue was...

The Bush administration is considering appointing a new civilian "superboss" to oversee the rebuilding program in Iraq. The new post would likely be headquartered in Baghdad and be over Washington's current supervisor in Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, say very senior sources. The plan is "under consideration," says a top administration official. If it happens, insiders say, it will be a victory for the State Department, which has been sparring with the Pentagon over who is in charge of the rebuilding program. Garner's role is to get Iraq up and running: making sure water and electricity work, rebuilding roads,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

<p>BAGHDAD -- Day after day, an increasingly vocal Iraqi public is demanding that the United States apply the same skill and efficiency in building the peace that it used to defeat Saddam Hussein's army. But nearly three weeks after Baghdad fell, American control already appears to be fraying at the edges.</p>

The Bush Administration is considering appointing a new civilian 'superboss' to oversee the rebuilding program in Iraq.The new post would likely be headquartered in Baghdad and be over Washington's current supervisor in Iraq, Lt. Gen Jay Garner, say very senior sources. The plan is 'under consideration,' says a top administration official.If it happens, insiders say, it will be a victory for the State Department, which has been sparring with the Pentagon over who is in charge of the rebuilding program.Garner's role is to get Iraq up and running: making sure water and electricity work, rebuilding roads, opening key ministries. Senior...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces on Sunday arrested an Iraqi exile who had proclaimed himself Baghdad's mayor, saying he was exerting authority he didn't have. Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was arrested at 5 p.m. in downtown Baghdad "for his inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," said U.S. military spokesman Capt. David Connolly, speaking in Baghdad. Soldiers arrested seven others found with al-Zubaidi, Connolly said without identifying them. Al-Zubaidi, who has cast himself as a volunteer to help Iraq (news - web sites) get back on its feet, never discouraged widespread rumors that...

Iraqis emulate Palestinians by stoning troops By Phil Reeves in Baghdad 27 April 2003 A tactic of the Palestinian intifada has spread ominously to Iraq, less than three weeks after US tanks rolled into the middle of Baghdad. American troops are coming under attack from Iraqi children throwing stones, replaying scenes from the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were broadcast on state-run television before the fall of Saddam Hussein. News reports said that children – who at first flocked around the American forces, and were given sweets by the soldiers – have begun hurling rocks in Mosul and the...

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld left Saturday for a trip to the Persian Gulf region.Rumsfeld has said he wants to talk to leaders of friendly countries in the area about changing the U.S. military presence there following the American-led invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of its government.He has suggested the United States could lower its profile in the Persian Gulf because the regime of Saddam Hussein no longer poses a threat to neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.The duration and specific destinations on Rumsfeld's itinerary could not be disclosed because of security concerns, defense...