Bremer is expected to be the civil administrator of Iraq

WASHINGTON, April 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W. Bush plans to “appoint” a career State Department official a civilian administrator of Iraq, as a tribal leader and former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party is expected to be installed as governor of the country's second largest city Basra.

In what is seen as a victory for Secretary of State Colin Powell, Paul Bremer, a counterterrorism and security expert and a former ambassador-at-large, will have authority over retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, the current U.S. point man in Iraq in charge of humanitarian and reconstruction issues, Newsweek magazine reported late Wednesday, April 30.

Citing an unnamed senior administration official, the magazine said special White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is overseeing efforts to create an Iraqi government, will also report to Bremer.

According to the report, Bremer's imminent appointment counts as a win for Powell in a behind-the-scenes struggle over who will run Iraq.

Powell's State Department has been fighting with the Defense Department under Donald Rumsfeld over how Iraq will be governed and how long the U.S. presence will last.

Defense officials are said to be pushing the candidacy of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi to head Iraq's future transitional government, which they want to install quickly.

State Department officials have been questioning Chalabi's legitimacy and are pushing for a conference to help form an Iraqi government, a process that is expected to take several months. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia to 20 years by a Jordanian court after convicted of bank fraud.

A spokesman in Bremer's office in Washington, where he serves chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting company, said he was unavailable for comment and could not "confirm or deny" that he would be appointed. The announcement is expected as early as this week.

The appointment of a career diplomat and security expert to the new post comes as U.S. officials grapple with a messy peacekeeping and stability problem in occupied Iraq, said the report.

Meanwhile, seven U.S. soldiers were moderately injured when two unidentified men lobbed two grenades over the wall of their offices here early Thursday, a U.S. officer said. The incident came after U.S. troops shot dead three anti-occupation Iraqi demonstrators and wound several others on Wednesday and shot dead 15 Iraqis and wounded  50 others in a separate protest against the U.S. military presence in the country a day earlier.

‘Counterforce’

On Tuesday, Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that while State has "solid representation" on Garner's team, authority in Iraq might be removed from the Pentagon and the State Department will begin to play a more significant role.

Some allies of Powell in Washington cheered the designation of Bremer, saying he will provide a counterforce to neoconservative ideologues at the Pentagon and White House.

"It's a very good idea, you need a senior diplomatic person there," said one U.S. official.

"That was the missing piece. He's very much in the Kissinger-Baker mode, very much a realist about it," referring to former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James Baker.

In Basra, Former Baathist To be At Helm

In another related development, a tribal leader and former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, Sheikh Muzahem al-Tamimi is already the man to turn to in Iraq's second city Basra, where he hopes to work closely with British and U.S. forces.

A former businessman, engineer, lawyer and naval officer, Sheikh Muzahem is expected to be given the title of governor and the British forces who control Basra have already sought his help in running civic affairs, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Sheikh Muzahem plays down talk that he has already been appointed, saying a governor will be chosen by Iraq's interim government which he expects to be in place "within a month."

But the formalities mean little to many of Basra's 1.5 million citizens, who have already been seeing Sheikh Muzahem as the man accountable. His room in a villa in the heart of city sees a flood of visitors, from prominent figures to workers, who come to seek advice or discuss their difficulties.

Sheikh Muzahem, 50, acknowledges he was part of the Baath Party, whose rule was ousted by the U.S.-led forces.

'Coordination'

But he stresses that he was only a Baathist "until the war" and that he was never a close associate of Saddam.

"I'd like to serve my country," says the ambitious sheikh, clad in a flowing white robe and a traditional red-and-white checkered headdress.

"We want to establish a government in coordination with the Americans and the British," he says. "There is a kind of cooperation between us, we have a channel of contact between us."

That contact is made easier by Sheikh Muzahem's ease in expressing himself in English, which he learned in Iraq and perfected by reading literature. He also speaks Russian picked up over his five years studying in Russia.

To the British, Sheikh Muzahem's past Baathist affiliation does not appear to be a problem and his name has been repeatedly mentioned as the chief player in post-Saddam Basra.

The British are mostly concerned with finding a figure who enjoys the support of the population, said Colonel Chris Vernon, a British military spokesman.

Substantial Backing

While Sheikh Muzahem has warned he does not enjoy universal support, backing for him is substantial, Vernon said.

One international observer saw the sheikh more as an opportunistic businessman than a partisan creature, the observer says.

When asked about what the line of work he was involved in, Sheikh Muzahem rests his fingers on his neatly trimmed beard and responds cryptically, "any business," without further explanation.

Sheikh Muzahem doesn't have warm relations, however, with one influential group, the Iranian-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI). Basra is an overwhelmingly Shiite city, and the SAIRI was the main Shiite Muslim movement opposed to Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime.

Said Hussein al-Husseini, a local SAIRI official, says the movement did not have any relationship with Sheikh Muzahem and would never back someone who supports the occupation.

Sheikh Muzahem plays down such friction and dismissed speculation that SAIRI would seek an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy in Iraq.

"I have talked to many of them and they don't have such ideas" about a clerical government, he says.

The U.S. had earlier ruled out an Islamic theology would be in power of the country. Shiites made up 60 per cent of Iraq's population.

Sheikh Muzahem remains optimistic.

"The future will be better," he says, a pledge that may soon be his to fulfill.