Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was ousted after one term as UN chief because of US opposition to him, said he and Mr Annan were both responsible for the “oil-for-food” programme designed to ease the impact on Iraqis of sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Such scenes are not common here.There had been a mood of expectancy and confidence in Iraq’s second city after an election in which the Shias turned out in their millions to gain power in the country for the first time in a century. One outcome might be a Kurd, Jalal al-Talabani, as president, and two vice-presidents, such as Ibrahim al-Jaffari, a Shia, and a Sunni Arab. These must vote unanimously to pick a prime minister, the leading candidate being Adel Abdel Mahdi, the present Finance Minister from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.The United Iraqi Alliance was stitched together by emissaries of Ayatollah Sistani from the main Shia religious parties, SCIRI and Dawa, together with the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi Half the members of the Alliance are independents.. A surprising number of Iraqis claimed they would vote for him, but in the event this did not happen.The new government has similarities with that of Lebanon, with posts divided on a sectarian basis between Sunni, Shia and Kurd. The Kurds also want a federal Iraq and a weak central government so they can enjoy a degree of autonomy close to independence.

Iraq’s election commission failed to release new vote tallies yesterday, but said the final result would be out by Thursday. There would then be a nine-day period allowed to resolve complaints about the count before the results were certified.
The coalition of Shia parties called the United Iraqi Alliance is poised to win a majority in the Iraqi National Assembly, with two-thirds of the votes counted so far. The group of parties led by Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister, has done less well than expected, making it unlikely he will be reappointed to the post. The Shia parties oppose federalism.In the last weeks of the campaign Mr Allawi seemed to be making headway despite his full support for bloody US attacks on Najaf and Fallujah and the shortages of electricity, fuel and water.

Hamed al-Bayati, the deputy foreign minister and a senior figure in the Alliance, said yesterday: “Shias want the prime ministership, we are insisting on it and will not give it up.”Put together under the auspices of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric, the Alliance has won very large majorities in Baghdad and the nine southern provinces where Shias are in a majority. He put himself forward as the secular candidate and the Kurdish parties have never, unlike the United Iraqi Alliance, been religious. The complex rules governing the actions of the National Assembly require a two-thirds majority to form a government. If the Shia coalition wins 50 per cent of the 275 seats and the Kurdish Alliance 20 per cent then they will have a comfortable majority.The Kurds would probably be happier if Mr Allawi had done better. The vote from the eight northern provinces of Iraq is being counted more slowly, but will be dominated by the Kurds.The Sunni Arabs largely abstained or were intimidated from voting, but a group of parties brought together by Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister and president of the former Iraqi Governing Council, indicated it could participate in constitutional talks.The most likely outcome of the election will be a government based on a Shia-Kurdish agreement to share out the posts. One official said Ms Rice’s tour was little different from tours made by Mr Powell and President Bush in the year before the Iraq invasion.Comment, page 27. A colleague of Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist abducted in Iraq, said she received a second call from Ms Sgrena’s mobile phone yesterday.

Bowing to the increasing likelihood that a Shia-Kurdish alliance will take control in Iraq after last week’s elections, a group of mostly Sunni Arab parties announced yesterday they had decided “in principle” to take part in drafting a new constitution, even though they boycotted the poll. The first call had been on Friday, apparently while the kidnapping was taking place near Baghdad University.
Ms Sgrena, 56, and her newspaper, Il Manifesto, both hold anti-war views and Ms Schiavulli said that “the hope is that Giuliana has been taken captive by a criminal group looking for a ransom.”. Paris remains sceptical, however, that there will be a shift in US diplomatic thinking. It is significant, they say, that Britain is now lined up with its European partners against the US on issues from Iran to China, from global warming to African debt. But they also expect her to say that the US is ready to consult with the rest of the democratic world.”We don’t know clearly what Condoleezza Rice represents,” one French diplomat said.

“Colin Powell was not running US foreign policy, but neither was she.”Although France responded with public enthusiasm to last week’s Iraq elections. President Chirac’s multipolar view of the world is unchanged and largely incompatible with that of Mr Bush.However, French officials point out, much has changed since the war. The Secretary of State has made known that her speech in Paris on Tuesday night will deliver the “keynote” message of her trip.It was Ms Rice, at the height of the frenzy in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, who said that Washington should distinguish between allies who opposed the war: “We should placate Russia, ignore Germany and punish France,” she was reported as saying.French officials see her choice of Paris for the keynote speech as an acceptance that, whatever Fox News may say, France matters.They expect her speech to lay out a combative, albeit nuanced, version of President Bush’s good-vs-evil vision of world affairs. Ms Rice is likely to emphasise the urgency of Israel starting to curb expansion as well as the need for the Palestinian Authority to crack down on armed factions.Ms Rice will then focus on the other purpose of her trip: mending fences with Europe Nowhere is she expected with more curiosity than in France. Both are expected to make declarations intended to entrench the two-week-old – and hitherto fragile – de facto ceasefire.A key question for both Israeli and Palestinian politicians is how far she seeks to project a more balanced US policy towards the two sides after President Bush’s signal concessions to Mr Sharon in Washington last April. These not only ruled out a return for Palestinian refugees but accepted that the main Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank would remain in Israel after any final peace deal.Publicly the US remains restive over the foot-dragging by Israel over dismantling settlements and refusal to halt construction in the settlements themselves.