Iraq The Power Struggle: The Man With The Plan

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Given those constraints, it was inevitable that the makeup of the new government and how it was chosen would invite controversy. When Brahimi returned to Iraq at the beginning of May, backed by President Bush's pledge to hand sovereignty to whatever political arrangement Brahimi could come up with, he made clear his desire to stock the new government with nonpartisan technocrats without links to either the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council or to the man he calls "the big chief," Saddam. But only days before he had hoped to name Iraq's new leaders, that plan was overhauled. Brahimi's first choice for Prime Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, was leaked early last week to Washington reporters. But Shi'ite members of the Governing Council quickly complained that al-Shahristani, a former nuclear scientist, lacked any political base in the country; non-Shi'ite members of the council said he was too religious. Iraqi and U.N. officials say that after al-Shahristani withdrew his name from consideration, members of the Governing Council advised Brahimi that they had agreed to back one of their own for the new government's most powerful post--Iyad Allawi, a physician and Shi'ite Muslim who is head of the Iraqi National Accord (I.N.A.). By then, Brahimi--who insists his job is to broker a consensus on the new government, not to handpick its members--had little choice but to go along. "Brahimi decided that since this is their choice, he'll work with their decision," says a close aide. "He respects it."

But the reaction to Allawi's appointment highlighted the near impossibility of choosing an unelected Iraqi government that can command wide support. Almost from the moment they endorsed Allawi, Governing Council members rushed to declare that he was no one's top choice. "He's a compromise candidate," says council member Mahmoud Othman. "Nobody wanted him at the start, but in the end nobody rejected him." Allawi is a former member of Saddam's Baath Party who left Iraq for London in the mid-'70s and was later attacked by an ax-wielding assassin when he refused Saddam's demands to return. Beginning in the early 1990s, Allawi's I.N.A. began working with the CIA against Saddam's regime; in 1996 the CIA tried to use the group in a disastrous coup attempt against Saddam. While some U.S. officials expressed relief that Iraq's top post would be filled by someone they could do business with, some Iraqis warned that Allawi's association with the CIA and the Governing Council may compromise his authority before he even takes office. "He'll have to handle this somehow," says Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni member of the Governing Council.

The new government's basic task sounds deceptively simple: hold Iraq together, and lay the groundwork so reasonably fair elections can be held just seven months down the road, in January 2005. Getting there won't be easy, but after a year of U.S. stumbling, the Brahimi plan may well be the last chance to cement Iraq together as a relatively stable country. At this point, concedes a British official, "there is no plan B."