The Iraqi Governing Council was inaugurated in Baghdad on 13 July, marking Iraq's first step toward the formation of a democratic government. The following is a list of the council's members and their affiliations:
SHI'ITE MUSLIMS:
Iyad Allawi: head of the Iraqi National Accord (INA). Also a medical doctor and long-time oppositionist.
Ahmad al-Barak: serves as general coordinator for the Human Rights Association of Babil, and as coordinator for the Iraqi Bar Association. He has worked on UN programs in Iraq at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry since 1991.
Ahmad Chalabi: former exile and head of the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella group for the opposition. He was convicted in absentia of fraud in a banking scandal in Jordan in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim: Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Abd al-Aziz is the brother of SCIRI head Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. He returned to Iraq after the fall of the Hussein regime following 20 years of exile. SCIRI opposes the U.S.-led administration in Iraq.
Aqilah al-Hashimi: She is a former member of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry with experience working on UN programs. She recently led the Iraqi delegation to the UN donor conference in New York. She holds a Ph.D. in modern literature and a bachelor's degree in law.
Ibrahim al-Ja'fari: spokesman for the Islamic Da'wah Party from Karbala and also a medical doctor. His party fought the Hussein regime from Iran until 1982. Al-Da'wah claims to have lost 77,000 members to war with the regime.
Raja Habib al-Khaza'i: head of a maternity hospital in Al-Diwaniyah. Studied and lived in Britain from the late 1960s until she returned to Iraq in 1977.
Wa'il Abd al-Latif: served as head judge in Al-Nasiriyah courts. Named governor of Al-Basrah on 4 July.
Abd al-Zahra Uthman Muhammad: head of Al-Da'wah party in al-Basrah; editor of several newspapers and magazines.
Abd-al Karim al-Mahmadawi: known as "Prince of the Marshes" for leading a resistance movement against Hussein from the southern Iraqi marshes; imprisoned by the Hussein regime for six years. Now heads a small Islamist party in the southern Iraqi town of Amarah.
Hamid Majid Musa: secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party; also an economist and petroleum researcher. Left Iraq in 1978 and reportedly returned in 1983.
Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i: former Iraqi exile and human rights activist, medical doctor, and author.
Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum: Shi'ite cleric. Returned from exile in London after the fall of the Hussein regime. In London, he headed the Ahl al-Bayt Charitable Center. The Iraqi opposition elected Bahr al-Ulum as the Shi'ite member of a leadership triumvirate after the 1991 Gulf War.
SUNNI MUSLIMS:
Nasir Kamil Chadirchi: head of the National Democratic Party and a Baghdad-based lawyer and businessman. He is the son of Kamil al-Chadirchi, who played a leading role in Iraq's democratic development until the Ba'ath Party came to power in 1968.
Muhsin Abd al-Hamid: secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party and author of some 30 books on the Qur'an.
Samir Shakir Mahmud: writer and businessman from Hadithah; oppositionist and member of the Al-Sumaydah tribe.
Adnan Pachachi: former Iraqi foreign minister and head of the Iraqi Independent Democrats Movement; returned to Iraq after the fall of the Hussein regime.
Ghazi Ajil al-Yawir: civil engineer, born in Mosul, and had been living in Saudi Arabia where he served as vice president of Hicap Technology Company.
KURDS:
Mas'ud Barzani: A Sunni Kurd, he is the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) founded in 1946 by his father Mustafa Barzani. Three of his brothers were reportedly disappeared in 1983 when the Hussein regime rounded up some 8,000 members of the Barzani clan.
Salah al-Din Muhammad Baha al-Din: head of the Kurdistan Islamic Movement. A Sunni Kurd from Halabja, he has written several books in Kurdish and Arabic.
Dara Nur al-Din: former judge on the Iraqi Court of Appeals. Jailed for eight months in 2002 by Hussein after declaring a Hussein edict on land confiscation without compensation was unconstitutional; released in general amnesty in October.
Jalal Talabani: head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He is a Sunni Kurd from Kirkuk. A one-time member of the KDP, he broke with the organization and founded the PUK in 1957.
Mahmud Uthman: independent politician.
CHRISTIANS:
Yonadam Yousif Kanna: head of the Assyrian Democratic Movement. He is a former minister of public works and housing and a former minister of industry and energy in Iraqi Kurdistan. Has opposed the Hussein regime since 1979.
TURKOMANS:
Sungul Chabuk: head of Kirkuk-based Women's Organization. Also an engineer and teacher.
For background information on the Iraqi opposition, and the events leading to the formation of the Governing Council, see the following articles by Kathleen Ridolfo
"HIGHLIGHTS OF THE IRAQI OPPOSITION CONFERENCE," "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 7 March 2003
"IN IRAQ, NEXT COMES THE HARD PART," "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 10 April 2003
"IRAQI OPPOSITION MEETS ON LIBERATED SOIL,"
"RFE/RL Iraq Report," 19 April 2003
"U.S. SPONSORS BAGHDAD MEETING TO DISCUSS POST-HUSSEIN IRAQ BUT NOT EVERYONE HAPPY,"
"RFE/RL Iraq Report," 2 May 2003 (with Bill Samii)
"U.S. SCRAPS NATIONAL CONFERENCE, WILL APPOINT IRAQI INTERIM COUNCIL,"
"RFE/RL Iraq Report," 6 June 2003
"IRAQI 'GROUP OF SEVEN' APPROVES EXPANSION," "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 21 June 2003
