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Iraqi smear campaign was 'dirty politics at its worst'
By James Drummond in Baghdad
Adnan Pachachi, the man who turned down the Iraqi presidency earlier this week, accused rivals on the now defunct Governing Council of indulging in "dirty politics at its worst" in organising a smear campaign against him.
In an interview on Thursday by telephone from his home in Abu Dhabi, he charged that the appointment of Iraq's interim government on Tuesday had been hijacked by a determined clique on the US-appointed Governing Council, rather than being left to United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been given the task of choosing the new government.
"The Iraqi Governing Council has absolutely no right to decide unilaterally on this issue," he said.
He also said that jobs in the new government were being decided upon along strict confessional and nationalist lines.
Throughout the political process in Iraq most observers had expected that Mr Pachachi, a veteran former foreign minister, would be offered and accept the largely ceremonial job of interim president.
At the last moment on Tuesday Mr Pachachi turned the job down after he said he had been portrayed, particularly in the Arab media, as an American stooge.
Instead the job, which is reserved for a Sunni Arab, went to Ghazi al-Yawar, a younger and relatively unknown member of the council who has strong tribal connections in northern Iraq.
Mr Pachachi said that an alliance of Kurds and Shia politicians in the council had tried to force a vote in favour of Mr Yawar "to establish some kind of fait accompli".
According to the transitional administrative law, which is the constitutional basis for Iraq's future, the choices should have been left to Mr Brahimi after wide consultations, he said.
"This was dirty politics at its worst. The Americans never offered me anything. They left it to Brahimi to consult and come to his conclusions," Mr Pachachi said.
He accused Shias and the Kurds on the Governing Council of interfering in the appointment of a president, which he said was to be left to Sunni Arabs.
"The Shia and Kurds had no right to interfere. We did not interfere in the selection of the prime minister by the Shias nor in the Kurds appointing their ministers. By what right do they interfere in our choice as president?" asked Mr Pachachi.
Last Friday, the council chose Iyad Allawi, a Shia backed by the US, as prime minister, a determination that was quickly welcomed by US officials but which seemed to catch the UN and Mr Brahimi by surprise.
In particular Mr Pachachi was furious on Thursday at being portrayed as the preferred candidate of the US. Diplomats in Baghdad say that if anything Mr Pachachi was in reality closer to Mr Brahimi and that they had fully expected him to take the presidency on Tuesday.
"Trying to portray me as a little soft on the Americans when I have been struggling for Arab rights all my life is not only false, it is unfair. I find it really insulting," said Mr Pachachi.
He blamed Ahmed Chalabi, a former US favourite who has fallen from grace, as the instigator of the campaign to denigrate him and promote Mr Yawar.
"The presidency was mine for the taking. But if I had taken the job the campaign against me would have intensified.
"They would say that the American choice has been preferred," said Mr Pachachi.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Muslim cleric, gave his conditional approval to the interim government on Thursday, Reuters reports from Najaf. But Mr Sistani said the government had "mammoth tasks" ahead.
Mr Sistani said the government lacked "electoral legitimacy" but said it remained a step in the right direction and would succeed if specific goals were met.
"The hope is that this government will prove its worthiness and integrity and its firm readiness to perform the mammoth tasks it is burdened with," the Shia cleric said in a partly hand-written statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf and stamped with his official seal.
Mr Sistani, who holds huge sway over Iraq's 60 per cent Shia majority, listed four key tasks that the government had to tackle - security, basic services for all, a new UN resolution granting Iraqi full sovereignty and the organising of free and fair elections early next year.
"The new government will not have popular acceptance unless it proves through practical and clear steps that it seeks diligently and seriously to achieve these tasks," Mr Sistani said.
He said the government would also be judged on how successful it was at alleviating the effect of 15 months of occupation.
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