09 June 2004	Wednesday	20 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

UNITED NATIONS, June 8: In order to ensure smooth transition for the interim Iraqi government on June 30, UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Monday urged the US military to quickly free as many inmates as possible from its prisons in Iraq.

This, he said, was necessary to "reassure the Iraqi people that abuses like those documented by the now-infamous photos at the Abu Ghraib detention center 'won't happen again'."

Mr Brahimi, who was in Iraq for almost a month in an effort to cobble an interim government, told the UN Security Council that the Iraqi people generally accept the new interim government poised to assume power on June 30, despite some reservation.

He also called on the new government to reach out to vocal critics of the political process in their country and "resist the temptation to characterize all who have opposed the occupation as terrorists and bitter-enders."

"As you may have seen through the media, this government is generally found acceptable by the Iraqi people," Mr Brahimi said. "Some are more cautious and, in some quarters, there may be stronger opposition but the Iraqi people seem to be willing to give them a chance to prove themselves," he added.

However, he cautioned that June 30 would mark only a new phase of the political process eventually leading to an elected government in 2005, and not the end of the line.

Mr Brahimi, who gave a special briefing to Security Council envoys on Saturday, laid out the problems encountered by his UN team in assembling a list of names acceptable to Paul Bremer, Iraq's US governor, the now-defunct US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, and the country's myriad political, ethnic and tribal groupings.