New positions established as Iraq handover nears

With fewer than 100 days until power is handed over to Iraqis, the country’s US administrator today established several Western-style institutions that are expected to put a moderating influence on the fledgling government that takes over June 30.

In a sign that security could remain a problem long after June 30, guerrillas in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, ambushed an American patrol, and three civilians were killed and two soldiers were wounded.

The fighting came after attacks on Iraqi police and recruits that left a dozen dead.

Paul Bremer, the top administrator in Iraq, said in Baghdad that significant steps had been taken to rebuild the country since the invasion toppled Saddam Hussein a year ago.

“One hundred days from now, Iraqis will be sovereign in their own land and responsible for their own future,” Bremer said in an outdoor speech in the Green Zone, the heavily protected area housing the coalition headquarters in the centre of the capital.

Bremer announced he would set up an Iraqi Defence Ministry and a national security cabinet later this week.

He said he was in the midst of appointing inspectors general to each of Iraq’s 25 government ministries, while also creating a government auditing board and an anti-corruption commission.

Bremer said work was underway to establish a public broadcasting service and an independent panel to regulate it.

US troops came under attack in Fallujah just a day after assailants killed nine police recruits south of Baghdad, while gunmen killed two policemen in the north.

In the southern province of Babil today, a district police chief was shot and killed on his way to work.

On the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, three people – a three-year-old boy, his grandmother and a male relative – were killed when an explosion destroyed their car.

Six other people were injured in the blast, which relatives said was caused by a mine in the road.

US and Iraqi officials expect Iraqi guerrillas and foreign fighters to step up attacks in coming weeks, as they move to disrupt the hand over process and try to demonstrate that a fledgling Iraqi government cannot control the country.