Arab League rebuffs Iraq's governing council

IRAQ: The Arab League has delivered a blow to Iraq's governing council by refusing to recognise it as the legitimate government of the country.

"The council is a start but it should pave the way for a legitimate government that can be recognised," said the league's secretary general, Mr Amr Moussa, yesterday after foreign ministers met to define the 22-member league's relations with Iraq following the toppling in April of Saddam Hussein.

While many Arab governments welcomed the formation of the council, most are unwilling to endorse a body which is under the control of the US occupation regime. Yesterday's ruling means that Iraq's seat in the league councils will remain vacant until a government is elected. This means that the interim government expected to be formed at the end of this week will be excluded from league deliberations and is unlikely to be recognised by member-governments. Elections could be held as early as mid-2004 if a constitution is written and approved by referendum.

Aware of the league's reluctance to recognise it, the council did not send members to the meeting and refrained from reacting to the league decision. Most league members opposed the US war to topple Saddam and are uneasy about the US-led authority now governing Iraq.

The current president of the league council, Bahrain's Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Mubarak, said Arab governments will work to help Iraqis restore "sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity".

He said that Arab countries will also take part in Iraq's reconstruction.

But Mr Moussa dismissed Arab participation in the multinational stabilisation force now being recruited by the US. "Sending Arab troops to Iraq is out of question, neither now nor in the future."

Meanwhile, a US civilian contractor was killed yesterday when a remote-control bomb exploded under his vehicle north of Tikrit.

The contractor was employed by Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, a Houston-based oilfield-services and construction company formerly headed by the US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney. The company has been awarded major contracts for reconstruction in Iraq.

The US military spokesman said that three US soldiers and an Iraqi translator were wounded in an anti-tank rocket and bomb attack on Monday near Baghdad's police headquarters.

There were no casualties during an earlier ambush on the airport road but two more US soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were injured in an attack near Baquba, 60 kilometres north of the capital.

More than 250 US troops have been killed and at least 835 wounded since the war on Iraq began last March.