Garner Begins to Shape Iraq's Interim Administration

Iraq's civil US administrator Jay Garner pledged to reopen national ministries soon and sounded out prospective local leaders with whom to work on the tough task of rebuilding the Iraqi government.

US-led coalition forces restarted some oil and gas production for domestic use in the battered country, an aide to Garner announced.

Iran meanwhile angrily rejected US accusations that it is trying to influence Iraq's complicated post-Saddam Hussein political landscape, warning US troops patrolling the Iraq-Iran border not to enter Iranian territory.

And the UN Environment Programme called for water and sewage systems in Iraq to be quickly restored to reduce the risk of epidemics, warning the war-damaged sanitation and electricity systems and worsening pollution posed a health threat.

In Baghdad, Garner, a retired US general tasked with overseeing humanitarian relief and setting up an interim Iraqi government, told a press conference he hoped to get Iraq's ministries up and running sometime next week, little more than a month after the first coalition missiles fell on Iraq on March 20.

Garner said some government ministries would open next week and all of them would be run by Iraqis, although they would be overseen by "coordinators" from the US-led restructuring team.

One of Garner's aides, Major General Carl Strock, said that US-led coalition forces had restarted some oil and gas production in the north and south of the country.

"This is strictly for domestic use, for Iraqi internal needs -- it's not for export," said Strock, a member of the US army corps of engineers.

Some 175,000 barrels per day (bpd) were being pumped in the south while in the north, gas wells were operational and US forces hoped to start pumping 60,000 bpd in the coming days, Strock said.

Earlier, Garner began searching for local leaders to work with US forces occupying Iraq to rebuild the country after 24 years of Saddam's brutal rule.

"Our purpose here in your country is to create an environment for you so that we can begin a process of government that leads to a democratic form in Iraq," Garner told an all-male group of 60 hand-picked Iraqis.

Garner's deputy, Tim Cross, said that those invited to the meeting -- a group including university professors and government technocrats -- were not necessarily being groomed for posts in an eventual administration.

US officials are treading cautiously in naming an interim administration to represent Iraq's mosaic of a population. They have distanced themselves from self-proclaimed Baghdad governor Mohammad Mohsen Zubeidi and remained cool to key opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress.

"Mr Chalabi's a fine man -- he's not my candidate, he's not the candidate of the coalition," Garner said.

"You'll see the leaders emerging in the next week or so and they'll work with us in providing the proper framework so we can get into the democratic process."

The second of a planned series of meetings of Iraqi opposition figures that had been set for Saturday in Baghdad has been postponed to Monday, a State Department official said.

As the United States focused on efforts to establish a new Iraqi government, it found itself in an escalating war of words with Tehran over US accusations that Iran was trying to influence Iraq's Shiite Muslims, who represent 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi rejected as "baseless" US claims that Iranian-trained agents were trying to infiltrate Iraq to push Tehran's brand of Islamic government by stirring up anti-US unrest among Shiites.

"There is no Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs," Kharazi told reporters at a joint news conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Kharazi also warned the US troops patrolling the Iraq-Iran border not to cross the "red line" into Iran.

"It is clear that we are going to defend our frontiers; the red line passes along the line of our borders," Kharazi said.

France, which bitterly opposed the war, continued to try and mend strained ties with Washington, with de Villepin saying in Tehran that the two countries could work together now "that the page on Iraq has been turned."

"I have no doubt that with the United States, which is a friendly country and an ally, we will find ways to help the peace process and the stability of the whole region," he said.

Earlier in the week Paris made a major about-turn and called for the UN to immediately suspend sanctions on Iraq, though it stopped short of the US demand that sanctions be lifted completely, thus enabling free trade of Iraqi oil.

The UN Thursday extended by three weeks to June 3 arrangements that place the running the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq under the control of Secretary General Kofi Annan.

But Security Council members still cannot agree on how the program, which provides for all of Iraq's 23 million people, should be administered in post-war Iraq.

The US military meanwhile announced the arrests of four more key Iraqi officials in Saddam's deposed regime -- three on its list of 55 "most wanted" suspects, as well as a key Iraqi intelligence agent not on the list.

The arrests brought to 11 the number of key fugitives on the most wanted list captured since the fall of Saddam's regime on April 9.

But the hunt for Iraq's deposed leader continued, as did the search for its alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the existence of which Washington and London used as the main justification for starting the war.

With the international community split over who should declare Iraq free of any banned arms, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said independent verification might come from a non-coalition country instead of UN inspectors.