Dr Iyad Allawi, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party who then worked with the CIA to topple him, was chosen yesterday as prime minister of Iraq.
Charged with taking over from the US occupation authority on June 30th, and leading his country to its first free elections next year, his nomination emerged from a unanimous consensus at a meeting of the 25 US appointees on Iraq's Governing Council.
United Nations envoy Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, whom Washington asked to help shape a new Iraqi government, welcomed the choice of the British-educated, Shi'ite neurologist. It was unclear how far US officials or Mr Brahimi influenced the choice of a long-time exile known to few Iraqis and whom people in Baghdad said was an outsider they could not trust.
Mr Brahimi and Iraq's US governor, Mr Paul Bremer, endorsed the nomination. Governing Council member Mr Mahmoud Othman said: "We had a meeting with Bremer and Brahimi and they both agreed and congratulated him and were happy about it".
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said only that he was waiting to hear from Dr Brahimi and made no mention of Mr Allawi, who survived an assassination bid by Iraqi agents in London in 1978.
A secular Muslim from Iraq's long-oppressed majority Shi'ite community, Dr Allawi will be joined on the 30-member team by Sunni Muslims, Kurds and representatives of Iraq's other minorities.
Mr Brahimi is expected to announce a Sunni president, two vice-presidents and 26 cabinet ministers over the next few days.
Negotiations are going on in the UN Security Council over how much sovereign power the interim government will have. Some Iraqi leaders and countries like France and Russia are pushing to amend a US and British-sponsored resolution to strengthen the government's powers, notably over US-led troops in Iraq.
The main challenge Dr Allawi faces will be holding elections, due in January under the US proposal; Iraq is riven with religious and ethnic tensions, has no tradition of democracy and is beset by violence from armed militias and urban guerrillas.
A Baghdad hotel manager, complaining of daily violence, said: "I know nothing about him. He lived abroad as an exile. We need someone who lived here who can pull Iraq out of a crisis.
"Iraq is the same as it was in the time of Saddam Hussein except now I am afraid of militiamen so I can't say my name."
Dr Allawi, born in 1945, is related to Mr Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favourite now out of favour who was once seen as Washington's first choice to lead Iraq.
The two are not regarded as close.
In 1990 he formed the Iraqi National Accord, a party backed by the CIA and British intelligence and including many disillusioned former Baathists.
Iraqi secret police were sent to assassinate him at home in the London suburb of Kingston in 1978 when he struck up a relationship with the British secret service, according to a book by Iraq specialists Andrew and Patrick Cockburn.
Axe-wielding Saddam agents burst into his bedroom as he and his wife slept but fled when his father-in-law appeared.