US troubleshooter arrives in bid to stabilise Iraq

THE US administrator for Baghdad was to leave her post yesterday amid criticism over the slow pace of reconstruction, as Washington’s new top official for Iraq flew into the Gulf charged with rebuilding the country.

Officials said that Barbara Bodine, who was charged with running Baghdad and central Iraq, would be returning to the United States to take up a new job in Washington. No reason was given for the move.

The Washington Post also reported that Jay Garner, the retired US general who up until now has been the leading US civil administrator in Iraq, will return home with his aides in the next weeks.

The changes in the line-up of Washington's main representatives in Iraq coincided with the arrival in the Qatari capital of Doha of Paul Bremer, who is to take over the role of the top US civil administrator from Garner.

Up until now, it had been thought that Garner would remain in the country to work alongside Bremer and focus on the tasks of restoring basic services and reviving key Iraqi ministries.

Accompanied by US Air Force General Richard Myers, the top military advisor to the Pentagon and the White House, Bremer was expected to outline his plans for post-war Iraq on his tour of the region, which would also include visits to Kuwait and Iraq.

The US leadership shake-up comes amid continued frustration among many Iraqis over the sluggish progress made so far in rebuilding the country, over a month after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime on April 9.

Iraq remains largely lawless, with crime rampant on the streets.

Water and electricity are scarce, and the World Health Organisation said last week it feared a cholera epidemic was breaking out in the southern city of Basra.

"The purpose for the military coalition is to continue to help stabilise the country to prevent any factional fighting, to back Iraq and to make the environment inside Iraq secure so other work can go on," Myers told a news conference.

Bremer, who is known for his tough-talking style, served as chairman of the US National Commission on Terrorism and warned of attacks on the United States comparable with the 1941 assault on Pearl Harbour over a year before the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks.

He arrives in the Gulf against a background of intensifying efforts by US officials and a leadership council of the main Iraqi factions to create an interim government in the next weeks which will take the country towards free elections.

However, it remains unclear how much power the US will be prepared to hand over to the interim government or when its occupying forces will leave the country.

Returning after 23 years of exile in neighbouring Iran, the leader of the main Shi'ite faction on the council continued his homecoming tour yesterday, urging supporters in the southern city of Nasiriyah to reject any "imposed government."

Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, the 66-year-old head of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), a day earlier made a triuphant return to the city of Basra, where he was welcomed back by tens of thousands of cheering supporters.

"We refuse imposed government. We are afraid neither of America nor England. Would the Americans like to be governed by the British? So how can you expect us to be governed by the Americans?" Hakim told a crowd of thousands in Nasiriyah.

US Marines in the city were visibly anxious at the appearance of Hakim, whom some officials in Washington fear will bring an Iran-style Shi'ite theocracy to Iraq.

"I was absent for 23 years, sacrificing for God and for you, to defend you from the regime," said Hakim, bursting into tears. "These sacrifices have been to raise the flag of Islam."

US forces continued to consolidate their grip on Iraq, with the People's Mujahedeen an Iraq-based armed Iranian opposition group listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington expected to begin submitting itself to US control.

US officers said they had struck a deal with the group for them to give up their weapons and gather their 4,000-5,000-strong fighting force at a US camp in northern Iraq.

With the whereabouts and fate of Saddam and his immediate family still a mystery, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Damascus has allowed the relatives of top Iraqi officials from the regime into the country but not the leaders themselves.

"Some of them came to the border. They weren't allowed to come in," Assad told Newsweek, in response to accusations from Washington that Syria had co-operated with Saddam's defunct regime.

"We allowed families to come to Syria, women and children. But we were suspicious of some of the relatives that they had positions in the past and were responsible for killings in Syria in the '80s," Assad told the magazine.

Meanwhile, in a boost for financing the reconstruction process in Iraq, the oil ministry's acting head said the country could resume oil exports by next month, when production may return to one million barrels per day (bpd).

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Israel that oil storage facilities in Iraq, which sits on the second-largest proven reserves of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia, could soon reach full capacity unless sales resume.