Interim Iraqi leader chosen

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Shiite Muslim member of a political party banned by Saddam Hussein was chosen Wednesday to be the first leader of Iraq's U.S.-picked interim government, serving a one-month term that will be rotated among eight other faction leaders.\nThe Iraq Governing Council, meeting in Baghdad's Convention Center, also lashed out at Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa for failing to recognize the interim government's authority.\nWho would lead the 25-member council had been a contentious issue as ethnic and political groups wrestled for a share of power. In the end, the interim government decided to rotate the presidency alphabetically among nine members.\nThe council will name cabinet members, control spending and set in place the mechanism for writing a new Iraqi constitution.\nMembers of the nine-member presidency were announced Tuesday. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, chief spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party, will serve as council president for August. He will be followed by Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite and leader of the Iraqi National Congress.\nThe council began functioning July 13 and said its first order of business would be to select a president. But, unable to agree on putting that much power in the hands of any one member, council sources said, it decided Tuesday to share the responsibility.\n"The council is made up of different political parties, with different agendas, different ethnic groups. There was no agreement among the members as to the agenda of any one party or among the varying ethnic groups," said Adel Nouri, a senior member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union Party.\nThe chief U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, attended the council session Wednesday, a day after returning from Washington for consultations.\nIn hitting back at Amr Moussa, the Arab League leader, the council said it would not send representatives to the Cairo-based organization, the region's most important political body.\n"We don't want to go where we are not welcome," council member Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi told Qatar's al-Jazeera television.\nIn Cairo, Egypt, Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef said he would have no comment. Moussa was out of the country.\nAn audiotape attributed to Saddam said Tuesday it was "good news" that his sons Odai and Qusai Hussein were killed in a July 22 shootout with U.S. forces because they were martyrs. The tape appeared to erase any remaining doubt among Iraqis that the feared brothers were dead.\nThe CIA has determined that the message is most likely authentic, a CIA official said Wednesday.\nDuring an overnight patrol early Wednesday in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, U.S. forces came across a black flag strung up in front of a local government building. The writing mourned the passing of Odai and Qusai.\nAfter asking his translator to read the gold and white lettering to him, Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who is leading the raids in Tikrit, told one of his men to cut it down and hand it to him. Russell crumpled it in his hands before taking it away.\nIn northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said they have found evidence that non-Iraqi fighters are among guerrillas attacking Americans. The officials said on condition of anonymity they were finding rocket-propelled grenades wired to timers, a weapon used against coalition forces by insurgents in Afghanistan.\nOsama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization and remnants of the Taliban are believed responsible for the continued attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.\nIn Pakistan, Geo-TV broadcasted an interview with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which he again raised U.S. concerns about foreign fighters among the insurgency in Iraq.\n"Certainly we know that there are foreign fighters that have flowed in through Syria, and in fact, 80 of them were engaged several weeks ago in a training camp, and they were not Iraqis," Myers said.\nBut it was unclear what role the foreigners were playing in the insurgency that has killed 49 American soldiers since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over.