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Iraqi Governing Council Names Its First President

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From Associated Press

After weeks of struggling to choose a leader, Iraq’s U.S.-picked interim government named its first president on Wednesday -- a Shiite Muslim from a party banned by deposed President Saddam Hussein.

Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite and spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party, was picked to be the first of nine men who will serve one-month stints leading postwar Iraq. He will hold the presidency in August.

Selecting a president had been a contentious issue as ethnic and political groups wrestled for a share of power. In the end, the 25-member governing council decided to rotate the presidency among the nine members chosen Tuesday. Presidential power will be limited to minor administrative tasks and chairing council meetings.

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The council will control spending and set in place the mechanism for writing a new constitution. A council source said a Cabinet will be named soon.

Members of the council met with World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, who said his institution must first decide what constitutes a legally recognized government before it can lend money to Iraq for reconstruction.

After the council met in Baghdad’s Convention Center, a member lashed out at Arab League chief Amr Moussa for failing to recognize the interim government’s authority. He said the council would not send representatives to the Cairo, Egypt-based organization.

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“We don’t want to go where we are not welcome,” council member Nasir Chaderchi, a Sunni Muslim lawyer and businessman who leads the National Democratic Party, told Al Jazeera, the Arab-language satellite TV channel.

The council decision came a day after an audiotape attributed to Saddam Hussein said it was “good news” that his sons, Uday and Qusai, were killed in a July 22 shootout with U.S. soldiers because they now were martyrs.

The tape appeared to erase any remaining doubt among Iraqis that the feared brothers were dead. A CIA official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the tape appeared to be authentic.

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In Tikrit, the American military continued questioning suspects and poring over documents and photo albums seized in a Tuesday raid, looking for clues to Hussein’s whereabouts.

Soldiers interrogated one of his main bodyguards, his Tikrit security chief and a militia leader, who is believed to be behind attacks on U.S. troops, Maj. Bryan Luke said. The captives were not helpful, he said.

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