A leading Iraqi politician says US authorities were wrong to raid Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi's headquarters and accused them of trying to hijack Iraq's political future.
Iraqis were paying the price of a year of mistakes by US officials following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Governing Council member Mr Mahmoud Othman said yesterday.
He said US officials should have at least consulted the US-appointed council before American troops and Iraqi police stormed a home and offices of Mr Chalabi, the former darling of the Pentagon. "We definitely don't approve of the way it was done. We think it is a violation of at least the Governing Council's authority."
A senior official in the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority said the raids were based on Iraqi charges including fraud. CBS television quoted unnamed US officials alleging Mr Chalabi had passed US intelligence to Iran that could "get Americans killed".
The move aggravated political tensions in Iraq just six weeks before the US-led administration hands over sovereignty on June 30th, amid an Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal that has hurt American credibility throughout the Middle East.
The shape of the interim government is still not clear. Many Iraqis are suspicious of Governing Council members because they were appointed by the US.
The council's president was killed in a suicide car bomb attack on Monday outside the US headquarters in Baghdad.
Mr Othman, a member of the Kurdish minority that suffered badly under Saddam Hussein, rejected what he said was a US attempt to hand-pick the interim Iraqi government in talks with Iraqi politicians and UN envoy Mr Lakhdar Brahimi.
The government, he said, should be formed only after a national conference of Iraqis had nominated leaders. "Their idea, Brahimi and the Americans, is they will announce the government and the presidency and then in July or in August there will be a conference or Iraqi congress and that will elect a council, an advisory council," he said.
"This is not a good idea. Our point of view, we proposed to them is that they should hold a national Iraqi conference before forming the government. You make a government for Iraqis, you don't make it for Americans or for the UN. I think Iraqis should be given a say in it. They should have been allowed to have their own national conference and elect that government and elect the presidency."