Iraq should dissolve the U.S.-picked Governing Council and set up a caretaker government of respected Iraqis to lead the country from the U.S. handover of power on June 30 until elections set for Jan. 31, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday.
The caretaker government would be led by a prime minister and include a president and two vice presidents. It must include “Iraqi men and women known for their honesty, integrity and competence,” Brahimi said.
Well, that leaves Chalabi out, doesn’t it?
Brahimi insisted U.N. and U.S. officials were cooperating but he denounced the U.S. military operation against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, where civilian deaths have reportedly been high.
“Collective punishment is certainly unacceptable and the siege of the city is absolutely unacceptable,” Brahimi told a press conference.
He also criticized the U.S.-led coalition’s holding of Iraqi prisoners and U.S. efforts after Saddam’s fall to root out high-ranking members of the ousted Baath Party from official positions.
“It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands … of professionals sorely needed in the country have been dismissed” due to Baathist ties, he said.
Even some coalition officials have complained that the de-Baathification committee, headed by Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, has gone too far in pursuing Baathists.
Two more strikes against Chalabi. He has misused his CPA-granted power by wielding the “de-Baathification” stick against his political enemies and participated in, if not outright helped foment, the “collective punishment” against all the residents of Fallujah.
These criticisms can also be applied to other members of the Iraqi Puppet Council, but they fit Chalabi like a bloody glove.
As if to punctuate Brahimi’s statements at the press conference, in the middle of it a rocket slammed into the nearby Sheraton.
Update: For further proof of the disastrous and criminal actions of the neocon implant, Ahmed Chalabi, see this Salon article, which was pointed out by Aaron Trauring on the Stand Down blog:
Ahmed Chalabi, the neocons’ choice to run Iraq, appears to have been responsible for the disastrous decision to move against Muqtada al-Sadr