Ibrahim al-Jaafari

Ibrahim al-Jaafari is Prime Minister of Iraq.

On March 28, 2006, according to "Senior Shiite politicians," Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, "told Shiite officials to inform" al-Jaafari that President George W. Bush "does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government."

"Ambassador Khalilzad said that President Bush 'doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept' Mr. Jaafari to be the next prime minister ... It was the first 'clear and direct message' from the Americans on the issue of the candidate for prime minister," the New York Times reported.

Profiles
Al-Jaafari, who served as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council beginning in July 2003, was on the Unified Iraqi Coalition List with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and "various other pro-Iran fundamentalists, in addition to Sadrists" for the December 15, 2005, Iraqi national elections. 

Al-Jaafari, a member of the Daawa Islamic Party (Shia), is "the spokesman for Daawa, one the oldest of the Shia Islamist movements." In 1980, the party was banned and he fled to Iran, then to Syria and finally to Britain. Educated as a physician, al-Jaafari worked as a doctor in his hometown of Karbala.

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * U.S.-backed Iraqi exiles