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Iraq's New President Jalal Talabani: Ally of CIA, Iranian
Intelligence and Saddam Hussein
Washington's Trojan Horse in the New Iraqi Government: Vice
President Abdel Mahdi
Washington's Neocon in Baghdad: Zalmay Khalilzad Takes Over
as U.S. Ambassador
DeLay Under Scrutiny Again for Ethics Violations
Iraq's New President Jalal Talabani: Ally of CIA,
Iranian Intelligence and Saddam Hussein
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is named president of Iraq,
becoming the first non-Arab president of an Arab country.
Veteran Middle East journalist Dilip Hiro talks about Talabani's
ties to the CIA, Iranian intelligence and Saddam Hussein.
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is due to be sworn in today
as Iraq's new president. The national assembly ended two months
of deadlock Wednesday when it elected Talabani to the largely
ceremonial post. He becomes the first non-Arab president of
an Arab country.
Talabani told reporters his presidency "means that there
is no discrimination, that all Arabs, Kurds and other nationalities
have the same rights."
Ousted leader Saddam Hussein watched Talabani"s election
from his prison cell on a TV set up by his jailers.
The Iraqi parliament also named: outgoing finance minister
Adel Abdel Mahdi and outgoing interim president Ghazi Yawar
as the country's two vice presidents. The three men will serve
together on the presidency council. They are expected to name
Shiite politician Ibrahim Jaafari to the powerful post of
prime minister. Cabinet ministers are expected to be named
by next week.
The transitional government's main task will be to oversee
the drafting of a permanent Iraqi constitution and pave the
way for elections in December.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
announced that Zalmay Khalilzad has officially been nominated
to replace John Negroponte as ambassador to Iraq. Khalilzad
has been serving as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. He
was a leading backer of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and has
close ties to neo-conservatives in Washington. In 1998 he
co-signed a letter to President Clinton sent by the Project
for the New American Century calling for regime change in
Iraq.
Today we will take a an in-depth look at the new members
of Iraq"s government.
- Dilip Hiro, a veteran journalist on the Middle East.
His trilogy of books on Iraq and Iran are considered some
of the most definitive histories of the wars in the Persian
Gulf. His latest book is called "Secrets and Lies:
Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After."
Washington's Trojan Horse in the New Iraqi Government:
Vice President Abdel Mahdi
Outgoing finance minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was named by
the Iraqi parliament to be one of the country's two vice presidents.
We speak with author and activist Antonia Juhasz about Abdel
Mahdi's ties to neo-liberal institutions and his plans to
privatize Iraq's oil.
- Antonia Juhasz, author and activist. She is currently
working on a book about corporate globalization and Iraq.
Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Cambridge
University Review of International Relations Journal, and
the LA Times. For years, she was Project Director at the
International Forum on Globalization.
Washington's Neocon in Baghdad: Zalmay Khalilzad
Takes Over as U.S. Ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad, the current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan
prepares to head to Iraq. We look at his history from supporting
the mujahadeen in the 1980s, his relationship to big oil and
his role in the Project for the New American Century.
DeLay Under Scrutiny Again for Ethics Violations
Pressure mounts on House majority leader Tom DeLay to resign
after several more scandals come to light. We'll speak with
Texas journalist Lou DuBose, author of "The Hammer: Tom
DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress."
On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Tom Delay was in the
news once again. Both the New York Times and Washington Post
had front-page exposes that could lead to new ethics investigations
of the congressman.
The Washington Post reported that Delay took a six-day trip
to Moscow in 1997 that may have been secretly funded by Russian
businesses with ties to the Russian government. Officially
the trip was paid for by a mysterious company registered in
the Bahamas. House rules bar lawmakers from taking trips paid
for by foreign agents.
And the New York Times reported that Tom Delay's wife and
daughter have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Delay's
political action committee. Campaign finance experts say it
is not uncommon for relatives to be paid but the sums paid
to Delay's family were unusually generous. These are the latest
controversies that surround Delay who was admonished 3 times
last year by the House ethics committee.
Meanwhile, 3 associates of the congressman are under indictment
in Texas on state charges in connection with efforts to redraw
the state's congressional districts.
Yesterday afternoon, DeLay defended the payments to his family
and his trip to Moscow and called the reports "just another
seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me."
He said that the Republican party continues to back him. However,
last week the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page
weighed in on the Delay controversies and chastised him for
his ethical lapses. The paper stated that Delay has, "odor
issues" and that his "fault lies in betraying the
broader set of principles that brought him into office, and
which, if he continues as before, sooner or later will sweep
him out."
- Lou Dubose, author of a political biography on Tom Delay
called "The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the
Rise of the Republican Congress."
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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