In a major shift, US-led occupation authorities on Sunday abandoned the idea of letting a national conference of Iraqis select an interim government, instead opting for a plan that gives the US a more direct role in choosing the country’s leaders.Also, the national food-rationing programme introduced by Saddam Hussein because of international sanctions was re-established on Sunday.Officials with the UN World Food Programme, which is providing the rations under the authority of the US-led occupation forces, say the approximately $2 billion food-distribution effort is the largest they have ever undertaken. The cost will be reimbursed by Iraq after it resumes oil exports.Under the power-sharing plan outlined by a senior coalition official, the Americans and British would quickly appoint 25 to 30 ‘‘representative’’ Iraqis to a political council that would nominate Iraqis to serve in senior positions in ministries, although initially not as ministers themselves. The plan envisions an interim government being in place by mid-July. At first glance, the new plan would have the advantages of putting together an interim administration quickly at a time when occupation forces see signs of growing impatience on the streets — including another attack on US troops in the capital on Sunday.Seeking to avoid any impression that the new council would be merely an instrument of the US and its allies, a coalition official stressed that its members would be named only after intensive consultations and exchanges with a broad range of Iraqis.The official also said that parallel to the work of the council, a convention would be organised to work out a national constitution. Once it is approved in a national referendum, elections could be held and a government could be formed. The official declined to speculate on how long that would take.The big losers in the new plan could be the former exile groups, like the Iraqi National Congress (INC), and the main Kurdish and Shiite factions, which had hoped to use their early lead to dominate the proposed national conference. The new plan was unveiled to them at a meeting Sunday with L. Paul Bremer III, head of the coalition authority.Besides nominating people for the ministries and overseeing their work, the council would set broad government policies and lay the ground rules for the constitutional convention. The spokesman for the INC, Entifahd Qanbar, seemed distressed by the decision. But a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the main Kurdish factions, said he was satisfied with the US proposal.Meanwhile, the UNICEF said acute malnutrition rate among the country’s children has risen to 7.7 percent from a prewar level of 4 percent. An assessment by the aid group Oxfam last month concluded that ‘‘Iraqi agriculture is on the brink of collapse’’. (LAT-WP)
