Self-Styled Mayor of
Baghdad Detained
Iraqi Challenged U.S. Authority
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By Rajiv
Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 28, 2003; Page A01
The U.S. Central Command accused Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, a previously
unknown member of the country's exiled political opposition who has spent the
past 10 days holding forth as Baghdad's mayor, of interfering with U.S. efforts
to resuscitate Iraq's government and exercising authority he did not have. The
command alleged in a statement that Zubaidi had been trying "to take
political and personal advantage" of the power vacuum in the city by
attempting to wield power "not representative of the interests of the
people."
Zubaidi's aides said that he and his principal deputy, Jawdat Obeidi, were
arrested after being lured to the sprawling Republican Palace grounds, now home
to the U.S. civil-military coordination center, under the pretense they were
being granted a meeting with Jay M. Garner, the retired Army lieutenant general
who is serving as Iraq's day-to-day administrator.
The Central Command said Zubaidi and several people accompanying him were
detained near the coordination center, although five of them eventually were
released. Zubaidi and another man -- believed by his aides to be Obeidi -- were
removed from Baghdad and placed in an internment facility elsewhere in Iraq to
prevent Zubaidi's "continued misrepresentation of his authority as the
mayor of Baghdad," the command said.
U.S. forces also detained the chief Iraqi liaison to the U.N. inspection
teams, which had been scouring the country for signs of banned weapons before
the U.S. military invasion. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the erstwhile director
of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, turned himself in to soldiers from
the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in the northern city of Mosul today.
Amin was ranked 49th on a list of 55 Iraqis most wanted by the U.S. government
In a reminder of the dangers that remain for U.S. forces in Iraq, four
soldiers on a public-health mission were wounded, one seriously, when an
attacker opened fire on them in central Baghdad this morning, the Central
Command said.
Shortly before Zubaidi was arrested, U.S. officials who have assumed interim
civil administration duties here met with 10 senior officials of Baghdad's
former municipal government, including the deputy mayor for technical services
and deputy mayor for administration, to discuss efforts to restart water and
electric service and garbage collection. "Our goal is to work with the
structure to get the city back not just where it was, but better," said
Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador who is serving as the Pentagon's
administrative coordinator for central Iraq.
Bodine said an "emerging leadership" for Iraq would begin to
appear at a major meeting of political leaders, many of them former exiles, on
Monday in Baghdad. Between 300 and 400 representatives of various political,
religious and ethnic groups are expected to take part in the all-day gathering,
she said.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said about three-quarters of the
participants lived in Iraq through Hussein's three-decade rule, not in exile.
"It's a chance for people who haven't been able to express an honest view
for 35 years to do so," he said.
Wolfowitz said that in some cases, "it's very hard to know" the
sentiments and skills of the participants, but that the U.S. government was
trying to include them in the process in an effort to create a representative
interim government.
Conspicuously absent from the meeting will be Zubaidi. A Shiite Muslim who
had lived outside Iraq for 24 years, Zubaidi had portrayed himself as a
volunteer trying to help rebuild Baghdad's infrastructure and restart essential
government services. Claiming he was selected by a 22-member council of
businessmen, clerics and intellectuals to run this city of 5 million people, he
set up shop in a downtown hotel, where he met with tribal sheiks, religious
leaders and former officials in Saddam Hussein's government. In between the
meetings, he issued a flurry of edicts designed to establish control over city
services and police.
Although the U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. David D.
McKiernan, had warned Zubaidi on Wednesday to move out of the Palestine Hotel
and cease his activities, Zubaidi responded with indifference, simply
relocating to the Sheraton Hotel across the street and a neighboring social
club.
While U.S. military officials insist they have no current relationship with
him, his past connections to the U.S. government remain unclear. When Zubaidi
first claimed to be mayor, he met regularly with Army and Marine officers in
the city. He also has been doling out favors to his supporters -- providing
them with portable generators, for example -- that suggest he has a
deep-pocketed sponsor. But he has denied receiving money from the U.S.
government.
A U.S. military official said many of the meetings with Zubaidi were
conducted by civil affairs officers who were seeking to engage a wide spectrum
of Iraqis in an effort to restore basic services during the initial chaotic
days of the U.S. presence. The official insisted, however, that they were not
endorsing his claim to be the mayor.
The initial backing of Zubaidi and his subsequent arrest suggests that
various U.S. agencies, particularly the Pentagon, State Department and CIA,
still have different views about what shape a new Iraqi government should take
and which people should participate in the process of forming it.
Although Zubaidi is a member of the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of
onetime exiles opposed to Hussein and run by Ahmed Chalabi, INC officials said
they did not support Zubaidi's claim to the mayor's post.
In recent days, U.S. troops have taken more aggressive steps to confront
other Iraqis who have attempted to seize power in the postwar leadership
vacuum. On Friday, Marines threatened to use force to evict a former Shiite
preacher who had been holed up in the mayor's office in Kut, a city about 100
miles southeast of Baghdad. The man, who claimed he was the mayor there,
responded by slipping out the back door.
Many Baghdad residents had assumed Zubaidi had been appointed by the U.S.
military. He drove around in a white four-wheel drive vehicle with a sign taped
to the back window that read: "Executive Council of Baghdad." He had
set up committees charged with restoring public services and had urged
thousands of government workers to fill out forms to reclaim their old jobs.
"We will take care of everything," he said in a meeting last week.
But Zubaidi's actions galled U.S. officials here, who contended he had sent
letters to people telling them not to go back to work at utility plants and
banks unless he had given his approval.
His arrest illustrates the murky rules governing Iraqis who seek to fill
leadership roles on their own in the postwar environment. While the United
States would like to see Iraqis assume positions of responsibility, it wants to
be able to vet those who ultimately receive senior government jobs.
After news of Zubaidi's arrest was broadcast on a U.S.-run radio station
here, supporters at his headquarters at the Wiyah Club held a series of frantic
meetings aimed at organizing large demonstrations in the city on Monday.
Ahmed Abdelbakr, one of Zubaidi's spokesmen, said his boss was simply trying
to "fill a void."
"The Americans were late" in providing assistance, he said.
"We needed somebody to help the city."
American authorities promised that assistance was on the way. U.S. Treasury
officials working as advisers to Iraq's financial sector said they began
distributing $20 emergency payments to municipal employees returning to their
jobs today, and they said they expected to expand the program throughout the
capital and in the country's northern provinces this week.
The $20 payment program was launched in southern Iraq last week, but it ran
into problems when U.S. officials struggled to verify that those seeking the
handout had worked at the institutions to which they said they were returning.
After getting the $20 payments, the returning government workers will begin
to receive their regular monthly salaries, paid in part by $1.4 billion in
available Iraqi assets that have been frozen in U.S. banks. The salaries will
be paid in dollars, according to U.S. officials.
Staff writer Monte Reel contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46189-2003Apr27.html