CONTRADICTING the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 American lives, the top US arms inspector reported yesterday that he found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991.

American Vice President Dick Cheney squared up to his election challenger John Edwards today in their one and only live televised debate.

Three men in the holy city of Karbala have been sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes ranging from murder to incest, police officials said today.

THE United States transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government two days early yesterday in a surprise move that apparently caught insurgents off guard, averting a feared campaign of attacks to sabotage the move toward self-rule.

US governor Paul Bremer has left Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty to an interim government was completed today.

Legal documents handing over Iraqi sovereignty were given by US governor Paul Bremer to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in a ceremony in the heavily guarded Green Zone.

A CAR-BOMB attack killed 23 people south of Baghdad in the latest atrocity to blight Iraq's build-up to sovereignty this week as the caretaker prime minister said instability could delay national elections for two months.

SADDAM HUSSEIN could face the death penalty, the head of Iraq's war crimes tribunal said yesterday.

Saddam Hussein could face the death penalty, the head of Iraq’s war crimes tribunal said today.

UN special representative to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, today apologised for calling US chief administrator Paul Bremer a "dictator".

Iraq’s new prime minister has made his first address to the nation, saying a rapid US withdrawal from the country would be a “major disaster” because Iraqis were not ready to handle their own security.

The US and Saudi-educated head of Iraq’s Governing Council was named as president of the interim government today, after the Americans’ preferred candidate turned down the post.

Iraqi Governing Council President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer was named Iraq’s new president today – but only after former foreign minister Adnan Pachachi turned down the job.

Iraqi Governing Council members accused American officials of pressuring them to accept Washington’s choice for the country’s new president, delaying the announcement of a new government to take power on June 30.

Fighting raged in the Shiite holy city of Kufa early today, killing two US soldiers and further eroding a deal to halt clashes with followers of a radical Muslim cleric.

Differences between the Iraqi Governing Council and US authorities over who should be the country’s new president stalled a final agreement on the make-up of an interim government to take power on June 30.

A Shiite surgeon, who survived a Saddam Hussein ordered assassination attempt in London while in exile, tonight appears set to Iraq’s new prime minister.

IRAQ’S most influential Shi’ite cleric yesterday demanded that all armed groups withdraw from the embattled holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, where nine militiamen loyal to a rebel cleric were killed in heavy fighting with US forces.

The US governor of Iraq said today that the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis must go ahead as scheduled despite the killing of the head of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in a suicide bombing.

THE head of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad yesterday.

BRITISH Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said yesterday that any abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops would be “rooted out” amid accusations his government had “lost its grip” on Iraq policy.

US aircraft destroyed a Baghdad office of a radical Shiite cleric, killing two people and injuring six, his followers said today.

The prisoner abuse scandal has so tarnished the US Army’s 800th Military Police Brigade that soldiers recommended for an Army Bronze Star medal have been dropped from the list, the brigade’s commander says.

OSAMA BIN LADEN yesterday offered gold for anyone killing US or UN officials while Iraqi worshippers were told anyone who captures a female British soldier can keep her as a slave.

US ADMINISTRATOR Paul Bremer first heard of allegations that troops were mistreating Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison in January, a spokesman said yesterday.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the UN is taking seriously a death threat against him and other officials made in an audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden.

“Osama bin Laden” has offered rewards in gold for anyone who kills top US, British and United Nations officials in Iraq.

THREE American soldiers and over 40 fighters loyal to a radical cleric were killed in another day of widespread bloodshed in Iraq yesterday.

“Osama bin Laden” tonight offered rewards in gold for anyone who kills top US and UN officials in Iraq.

The US army intensified pressure on radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr today, seizing the governor’s office from his fighters in the holy city of Najaf.

AS the casualties mount in occupied Iraq, with hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of coalition soldiers dead, it strikes me that yet another Bush administration lie has been exposed.

US marines announced the end of the bloody, near four-week siege of Fallujah today and will hand the city over to an all-Iraqi force, commanded by one of Saddam Hussein’s generals .

Two US soldiers were killed when an explosion levelled part of a Baghdad building as they searched it for suspected production of “chemical munitions”.

PAUL BREMER says violence is not expected to delay the handover of Iraq's governance to Iraqis in June.

The new Iraqi army will start recruiting former senior officers from Saddam Hussein’s military and today also lifted a ban on members of Saddam’s disbanded Baath party from teaching in schools.

The US is to bring members of Saddam Hussein’s disbanded Baath party in from the cold – allowing thousands of former army officers and teachers back in their jobs.

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network have been blamed for bombings in the city of Basra today, killing at least 68 people including 16 children, in co-ordinated bomb blasts.

Iraqi leaders have set up a tribunal of judges and prosecutors to try ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

President George Bush has named John Negroponte, the United States’ top diplomat at the United Nations, as the US ambassador to Iraq.

Iraqi security forces will not be ready to protect the country against insurgents by the June 30 handover of power, the top US administrator said – an assessment aimed at defending the continued heavy presence of US troops even after an Iraqi government takes over.

US troops killed dozens of insurgents near the Syrian border with Iraq after an ambush that left five Marines dead.

Diplomatic efforts to end a standoff between US troops and an anti-American cleric in one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam pressed forward today and an Iraqi leader said he saw “flexibility” on the side of the charismatic cleric, who heads a militia with several thousand members.

Gunmen assassinated an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad just as Iran, with tacit US approval, attempted to mediate with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr defying American forces in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.

YOU quote Paul Bremer (Irish Examiner, April 12) as saying that recent violence is not expected to delay the handover of the country’s governance to Iraqis at the end of June.