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BAGHDAD, June 2: The United Nations envoy in Baghdad urged Iraqis on Wednesday to press on with setting up a broad parliamentary-style body to help oversee the new interim government that is charged with organizing elections.
Lakhdar Brahimi, who played a mediating role in setting up the government announced on Tuesday to take over from the US occupation authority, said a group of about 60 leading Iraqis would criss-cross the country to organize a planned national conference next month that would select the new chamber.
"It's more than a consultative body but it's less than a legislative body," he said at a news conference as he laid out the next step on the path to Iraq's first free elections in January under a transition process agreed with the United States. "It is only an elected government that can legitimately claim to represent the people of Iraq," he said, as debate rumbled on among Iraqis about the choice of interim ministers.
US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday the new government could face a baptism of fire from militants, such as Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"People like Zarqawi... will try to test this the new government," she said on US television. "There may be an uptick in violence. In fact, I think you can expect one." Rockets rained down on the US administrative compound as the new government was being sworn in and a car bomb tore through the nearby offices of a Kurdish political party.
The oversight new body, to number perhaps about 80 members drawn from about 1,000 who would attend the national conference next month, would have the power to overrule the government on a two-thirds vote and to name ministers if any posts fall vacant, a UN official said, referring to a plan already made public.
The transition process is set out in a draft United Nations resolution proposed by the United States and Britain. Iraqis and some Council members, including France, have criticized the draft as placing too much restriction on the sovereignty the interim government will gain from Washington on June 30. A second draft submitted on Tuesday would give it control of its police, border patrols and other security forces. -Reuters
US pressure
Flatly contradicting US officials who insist Washington did not exert pressure to prevent him becoming head of state, Iraq's new president, Ghazi Yawar, told a newspaper he had been offered a string of other jobs by US officials in a bid to get him to stand aside in favour of elder statesman Adnan Pachachi. "There was pressure and offers of other positions in return for my stepping down," Mr Yawar said. -Reuters
