Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 25 September 2003 — Iraq’s Governing Council backed off yesterday from a controversial pledge by its finance minister to allow 100 percent foreign ownership in most economic sectors here, saying the matter needed more study.

A council statement distanced the US-installed body from a key part of a sweeping economic package presented by interim Finance Minister Kamel Al-Kilani at the International Monetary Fund meeting in Dubai on Sunday.

The text said that only the council president could announce policy “and the statements attributed to the (finance) minister about the law of investment cannot be considered official.”

Kilani’s announcement that Iraq would be open to 100 percent foreign ownership in all sectors except oil created headlines and sparked criticism in Iraqi business circles.

But the council statement said the version presented in Dubai “was not precise” and ignored restrictions adopted by the council concerning the use of manpower and the organization of the private sector in Iraq.

“After studying the statements attributed to the finance minister and the reaction,” the council decided to empanel a committee of experts to review the investment question and its impact, the statement said.

Meanwhile, one Iraqi was killed and 21 wounded in Baghdad yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded next to a minibus while five others were hit by US fire, as anti-war nations met at the United Nations to try to agree a common line on Iraq’s future.

Just a day after the US-installed Governing Council, shaken by the attempted murder of one of its members, Akila Al-Hashimi, cracked down on Arab media accused of inciting violence, Iraq witnessed more bloodshed.

Police said the minibus crashed into a tree and split open after being hit by a bomb planted on a divider in the middle of a central Baghdad road and detonated shortly after a US patrol passed by.

One person was killed and 21 wounded, four of them seriously.

US troops were blamed for two other incidents in which two Iraqis were killed and at least three injured.

Witnesses said two Iraqis died and another was hurt after US soldiers opened fire during a house-to-house search at Al-Jizani village near Baqubah, 66 kilometers (41 miles) north of Baghdad.

Later in the troubled area of Khaldiyah, near Fallujah, 50 kilometers (35 miles) from Baghdad, two boys and a man were wounded when a US tank opened fire after it was hit by a roadside bomb and shelled two houses, witnesses said.

Two people were killed and 14 injured in a grenade attack on a porn cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said.

“All the casualties were young men,” said Lt. Mohammed Duraid, adding that four of the wounded were in serious condition.

The grenade was thrown by unidentified assailants at about 3:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) as an audience of some 200 people was watching a movie, he said. No arrests were made.

Iraq’s political future, meanwhile, was still in limbo as UN Security Council members remained at odds over how to rebuild the war-battered country.

US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made peace yesterday after a long rift in their first face-to-face talks in more than a year.

The chancellor then met French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nations spearheaded opposition to the war and helped ensure Washington did not get a UN mandate to launch it.

Chirac said after the talks that France, Germany and Russia would approach a US-proposed Security Council resolution on Iraq in a “positive and constructive” way.