WASHINGTON: A Pentagon lawyer who sought to have US citizens imprisoned indefinitely without charge as part of the ‘war on terrorism’ will supervise civil administration in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is removed.

Michael Mobbs, 54, who will take charge of 11 of the 23 Iraqi ministries, is one of several controversial appointments to the Pentagon-controlled government-in-waiting being assembled in a cluster of seaside villas in Kuwait.

Other top-level appointees include James Woolsey, a former CIA director with Israeli connections who has long pursued a theory that President Saddam Hussein, rather than religious militants, was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York. Another is Zalmay Khalilzad, who once sympathized with the Taliban but later changed tack.

During the Reagan administration, Mr Mobbs worked at the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, where he became known for his hawkish views on national security and American-Soviet relations.

In his current role as a legal consultant to the Pentagon, Mr Mobbs has been working behind the scenes to help determine the legal fate of terror suspects and other detainees held by the US military in Cuba and Afghanistan.

He was also author of what has become known as the “Mobbs declaration”, a document presented to the US courts on behalf of the Pentagon claiming that the US president has wide powers to detain American citizens alleged to be enemy combatants indefinitely.

The former CIA director James Woolsey was initially scheduled to take charge of the Iraqi information ministry, although opposition from the White House has made that unlikely. However, sources close to the planning process say he is expected to be handed a senior role in the post-Saddam government.

Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, a former Pentagon and state department official, has been appointed as the government-in-waiting’s “special envoy” to the Iraqi opposition.

His main task is to organize a conference of 250 prominent Iraqis, the equivalent of the loya jirga in Afghanistan.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.