WASHINGTON, Aug 9: President George W. Bush has appointed one of his political fundraisers, Thomas Foley, to oversee the Iraqi state business sector and draw up a sweeping privatization plan, Mr Foley said on Friday.

As the coalition’s director of Iraq public sector development, Mr Foley will effectively decide which of the roughly 200 state-owned companies, employing about half a million people, should survive or die.

Foley, who expected to depart as early as Monday, is to report to the US governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer.

The 51-year-old corporate turnaround chief, chairman of the NTC Group, said the job was a duty he would accept, rather than any kind of compensation from Mr Bush.

All Iraqi state-owned businesses other than oil and the two state-owned banks would report to Mr Foley, he said.

He had three main jobs: to get the companies up and running if they were viable, develop a privatization plan and to develop trade and foreign commerce.

Many of the Iraqi state-owned companies, employing between about 400,000 and 750,000 people depending on the estimate, were unviable, Mr Foley said. —AFP