Bush shakes up Iraq team

Baghdad - The United States administrator for Baghdad, Barbara Bodine, is returning to Washington amid criticism that vital services are not being restored quickly enough.

The expected departure on Sunday of Ms Bodine - who was in effect Baghdad's post-war mayor - is seen as part of a more general shake up of President George Bush's post-war Iraq team.

Last week Paul Bremer, a former terrorism expert, was appointed overall administrator for Iraq - a move which demotes the current head, retired general Jay Garner.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad says Iraqis have become increasingly frustrated that their lives remain in chaos more than a month after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.

Basic public services, such as rubbish collection and sanitation, are still not operational.

There is a lack of security, ministries are not working properly and salaries are not being paid.

Even some within the reconstruction operation admit it has not gone to plan and that the US and Britain were unprepared for rebuilding Iraq.

"We can't even run ourselves, let alone a country," one insider told our correspondent.

A senior US official is quoted by the Washington Post as saying that "a very different organisation" will be in place by the end of the month.

It was not exactly clear why Ms Bodine, 54, who had served in the US embassy in Baghdad in the 1980s has been asked to leave.

She told the Washington Post that "a lot of what was dysfunctional about Baghdad predates the war".

She also said that her reassignment, which came in a late-night call on a telephone that had been installed in her office only hours before, was a "natural break".

"We've kind of cobbled the machinery together," she told the newspaper. "Now it's time to hand off to somebody who can take it from here to the political transformation."

On the military front, the US has said that Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard will have no further role.

The army will be much smaller than previously and the Republic Guard - a force of around 70,000 personnel before the war - will be dismantled.

But the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard Myers, has said the Iraqi military will be large enough to defend the country from outside threats.

General Myers was speaking en route to Doha to meet with Qatari officials and US troops stationed there. He was accompanied by Mr Bremer.

He said other special units with close ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party would also be disbanded.

"They're history. Those entities will go away," General Myers said.

However, some Iraqi soldiers who fought against coalition forces may be allowed to join a reorganised military after being vetted, he added.

Some sort of Iraqi air force also may be shaped from what survived the war.

The country is also seen to have a legitimate need for a small coast guard to patrol its waterways. -- BBC News

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