IRAQ: Iraqi leaders rounded on the United States and United Nations yesterday for blocking their choice of a president to replace Saddam Hussein when the US occupation authority is wound up in a month's time.
Deadlock set in on Sunday after a prime minister and key cabinet posts were broadly agreed. Iraqi politicians said US officials asked the Iraqi Governing Council to put off further talks on filling the largely ceremonial post of head of state.
The council was next due to meet this morning.
The US-appointed council favours its present leader, Mr Ghazi Yawar, a prominent tribal leader with support from various ethnic and religious groups. Council members said US governor Mr Paul Bremer and UN envoy Mr Lakhdar Brahimi were pressuring them to back Mr Adnan Pachachi, an 81-year-old former foreign minister.
Violence poses the greatest challenge to the new interim government's prime task of holding Iraq's first free elections next year.
Two US soldiers and close to 20 Shia militiamen were killed in sharp skirmishing near Najaf overnight on Monday, the fourth day of clashes since the militia leader offered a truce.
A car bomb killed four people and wounded 25 on a busy Baghdad street not far from the prime minister-designate's office. Dutch troops were close by yesterday when a van exploded in the southern city of Samawa and a mortar attack struck the offices of a Kurdish political party at Arbil, in the north of Iraq.
Iraqi members of the council expressed irritation at not getting their way. "There's quite a lot of interference. They should let the Iraqis decide for themselves. This is an Iraqi affair," Mr Mahmoud Othman, a Kurd on the 22-member council, said.
Several said they believed US officials might try to break the deadlock by suggesting a compromise third candidate.
"This will not change the fact that the wishes of the Governing Council have been ignored," said Mr Haider Mousawi, an aide to secular Shia council member Mr Ahmad Chalabi.
Mr Bremer's spokesman said only that US officials were not determining the council's schedule, and referred queries on candidates to Mr Brahimi, who has made no comment.
Despite Mr Brahimi's suggestion some weeks ago that he would prefer to see an interim government of apolitical technocrats, the council appears set on naming many of its own members to the new administration that will supersede it on June 30th.
The council was appointed by the US occupying power a year ago and is regarded by many Iraqis with suspicion.
The Governing Council caught Mr Brahimi off-guard on Friday by announcing the nomination to the top job of prime minister of Mr Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia member of the council who worked with the CIA from exile to overthrow Saddam.
Mr Brahimi and the White House later said they endorsed the appointment.
Both Mr Yawar and Mr Pachachi are Sunni Muslim Council members.
It was unclear why Washington was objecting to Mr Yawar. He has criticised the US-drafted UN resolution that sets out the handover plan, complaining it gives Iraqis too little control of the 150,000 mainly American foreign soldiers staying in Iraq.