Iraq Notebook
Aussie says kidnapped aid worker's body found

Margaret Hassan was kidnapped Oct. 19.

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CANBERRA, Australia — A body found in the Iraqi city of Fallujah appears to be that of kidnapped British aid worker Margaret Hassan, Australian Prime Minister John Howard told parliament today.

Howard did not elaborate, and a spokesman for his office also said he had nothing to add.

Hassan was kidnapped Oct. 19 as she was being driven to work in Baghdad, where she was director of CARE International's office, a position funded by CARE Australia. It has never been clear who seized Hassan or where she was held.

A video released to Arabic news channel Al Jazeera last week showed a hooded figure shooting a blindfolded woman in the head. Hassan's family, who said Tuesday she probably was dead, had appealed to the kidnappers to reveal the location of her body.

Al-Sistani organizing to ensure Shiite victory

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has assigned top aides to take charge of efforts designed to ensure that Shiites win a majority in the crucial general election slated for early next year, according to well-placed Shiite figures.

Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 25 million people.

Many Sunni Arabs are apprehensive about the vote because it will confirm their loss of power after Saddam Hussein's ouster 19 months ago. Saddam, a Sunni, long oppressed the Shiite majority. Rising calls by Sunni Arab clerics for a boycott of the election could cost the new government its necessary legitimacy.

Top Shiite clerics like al-Sistani have not condoned armed resistance against U.S. and other foreign troops. Sunni Arabs have led the insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces, winning the respect and admiration of their powerful community.

The sources said al-Sistani, an Iranian-born cleric who enjoys the respect of Iraqi Shiites, has placed Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who nearly became Iraq's first postwar prime minister, in charge of negotiations with Shiite leaders and independent politicians over a single slate of candidates.
 
Under Iraq's election laws, parties will vote by slates of candidates.

Russia won't help in oil-for-food probe

UNITED NATIONS — Russia is refusing to provide witnesses or information to the independent investigation into alleged corruption in the multibillion-dollar U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, an official close to the investigation said yesterday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian diplomats "dug in their heels" this week while meeting with members of the independent inquiry.

Russia is a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, which approved Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendation in April to set up an independent panel headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to probe all aspects of the oil-for-food program.

Under the program, Russian companies were major recipients of contracts from Saddam Hussein's government for the sale of Iraqi oil and the supply of humanitarian goods to Iraq.

Launched in December 1996 to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the program allowed the former Iraqi regime to sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them, and who could buy Iraqi oil — but the U.N. committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement earlier yesterday that Russian exporters operating under the program did not violate sanctions.

"In particular, it was noted that during the humanitarian operation in Iraq, Russian exporters strictly adhered to the sanctions regime," the ministry said in a statement.