corrente

Kind of a reality/faith-based kind of thing:

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is due to announce by Monday the makeup of the caretaker government due to take power on June 30, a key step in U.S. plans to hand over authority to the Iraqis.

[Hussain al-Shahristani], a Shiite Muslim nuclear scientist is among those being considered for Iraq's prime minister.

A U.S. coalition spokesman, however, denied that Hussain al-Shahristani, a sharp critic of the occupation, is the frontrunner for the premiership and said no choice had been made yet.

The latest name floated as a possibilty for prime minister, scientist al-Shahristani was jailed under Saddam Hussein's regime - reportedly for refusing to help build a nuclear weapon.

Good for him! Of course, whether he'd build them for himself... Especially when Pakistan has them and Iraq might be getting them is another issue ..

In an April 29 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, al-Shahristani roundly criticized the U.S. handling of Iraq, saying the United States "failed to win the trust of the Iraqi people and has allowed the country to slip into turmoil" by failing to allow Iraqis to hold elections.

So the guy is a scientist: he can work from evidence.

The column identifies al-Shahristani as "a senior adviser" to al-Sistani, who has been the leading proponent for early elections in Iraq.

That takes care of the Shi'ites. And I don't imagine this guy thinks too much of Sadrists...

Before the war, al-Shahristani was among the Iraqi exiles who insisted that Saddam maintained weapons of mass destruction. In February 2003, he told CBS' "60 Minutes" that such weapons may have been hidden in tunnels for a Baghdad subway that never opened.
(via AP)

Whoops! I take back what I said about evidence....