head of Iraqi Governing Counci killed

[Klaus]

Tagesschau.de reported today that according to al-Jazeera that Essedin Salim, head of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council was killed by a suicide attack with a carbomb.

 

[A_Wanderer]

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&...on/story_page/0,4057,9586041%255E1702,00.html
has a whole list of news sites.

This is not good news, it seems that the foreign Al Qaeda/Islamist element is intent on delaying the handover of power, I think there may be more of these types of attacks designed to inflict maximum damage upon the political process and possibly push the country into Civil War. In spite of this we must also remember that the head of the IGC is rotational so it is not like they killed the only leader it has, the more these terrorists murder representatives of the people and innocent Iraqi's the less support they will enjoy. We need a just peace, killing innocents and politicians will only furthur that cause and spread it around the globe.

We can only hope that there are more Iraqi leaders willing to risk their lives for a safe, democratic, free and independent Iraq.

 

[Dreadsox]

 

[Scarletwine]

There is no handover on June 30. It's just a sham our gov't is trying to do.

I'm very sorry for this man's loss to his family.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108439973419309908-IdjeoNplal3mpypZ4KHaaiEm4,00.html

Behind the Scenes,
U.S. Tightens Grip
On Iraq's Future

Hand-Picked Proxies, Advisers
Will Be Given Key Roles
In Interim Government
Facing Friction Over the Army
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 13, 2004; Page A1

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Haider al-Abadi runs Iraq's Ministry of Communications, but he no longer calls the shots there.

Instead, the authority to license Iraq's television stations, sanction newspapers and regulate cellphone companies was recently transferred to a commission whose members were selected by Washington. The commissioners' five-year terms stretch far beyond the planned 18-month tenure of the interim Iraqi government that will assume sovereignty on June 30.

The transfer surprised Mr. Abadi, a British-trained engineer who spent nearly two decades in exile before returning to Iraq last year. He found out the commission had been formally signed into law only when a reporter asked him for comment about it. "No one from the U.S. even found time to call and tell me themselves," he says.

As Washington prepares to hand over power, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and other officials are quietly building institutions that will give the U.S. powerful levers for influencing nearly every important decision the interim government will make.

In a series of edicts issued earlier, Mr. Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority created new commissions that effectively take away virtually all of the powers once held by several ministries. The CPA also established an important new security-adviser position, which will be in charge of training and organizing Iraq's new army and paramilitary forces, and put in place a pair of watchdog institutions that will serve as checks on individual ministries and allow for continued U.S. oversight. Meanwhile, the CPA reiterated that coalition advisers will remain in virtually all remaining ministries after the handover.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I believe some US soldiers and some Iraqis were killed/injured in this bombing as well

 

[Klaus]

Sounds like the "good old" satelite-countries of ussr.
Officially they were souvereign but every important thing was decided in Moscow

 

[verte76]

This sucks. What a fg mess.

 

[Mullen-Girl]

That's horrible