Bush Set to Nominate Ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, as New Ambassador to UN
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 04 January 2007

    Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is due to be nominated by President George W. Bush to become the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, a senior administration official said Thursday.

    Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan, has served also as ambassador to that country. He is likely to be replaced in Baghdad by Ryan Crocker, a veteran American diplomat, said the official, who could not be identified because he was not authorized to make an announcement for the White House.

    Khalilzad would replace John Bolton, whose appointment to the U.N. job expired recently.

    The changes come as Bush is expected to announce a new U.S. policy for the Iraq war next week.

    He also is shuffling other pieces of his national security team. He is preparing to announce that John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, will become the No. 2 official at the State Department and will be replaced by retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell.

    The appointments will have to be confirmed by the Senate.

    Khalilzad, an unusually outspoken diplomat who as a protege of Vice President Dick Cheney, would take the U.N. seat held on an interim basis by Bolton, whose confirmation Bush could not drive through the Senate.

    Joel Westra, an expert on the United Nations at Southern Methodist University, said while he expected Khalilzad to do well, "his close relationship to U.S. policy in Iraq might cause him some difficulty in dealing with states that oppose such policy."

    Bolton stepped down Dec. 3 after 16 months at the United Nations. In the post he aggressively pursued Bush's agenda, including pressing for sanctions against Iran and North Korea and overhaul of the United Nations.

    He had difficult relations with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and especially his deputy, Mark Malloch Brown, for criticizing U.S. diplomacy over the Darfur region of Sudan.

    A new U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, succeeded Annan on New Year's Day.

    Khalilzad's departure has been rumored for months, along with the expectation that Crocker, now ambassador to Pakistan, would succeed him in Baghdad.

    The U.S. official said some minor details still must be worked out on Crocker, but they are considered manageable.

    Crocker was a senior U.S. representative in Baghdad for several months in 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion that overthrew President Saddam Hussein.

    John Negroponte, whose nomination to be deputy secretary of state is expected on Friday, informed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in November that Khalilzad would leave Baghdad about the first of the year and be replaced by Crocker.

    A White House favorite whom Bush calls by his nickname, Zal, Khalilzad has worked in two other Republican administrations, those of President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.

    The highest-ranked Muslim to serve in the Bush administration, Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense Department in 2000 and served as a counselor to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

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    Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

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