Iraqi President Hopeful for New Gov't

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Asked where he lives, Iraq's new president-of-the-moment has a simple answer: "London."

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a shy general practitioner with a trimmed gray beard and a striped blue suit, hasn't lived in Iraq since 1980, when Saddam Hussein's repression of his Shiite Muslim al-Dawa Party forced him to flee -- to Iran, Syria and Britain.

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Iraq's American occupiers have veto power over anything he does.

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"I don't know anything about his background, but he came in on the American tanks," said driver Wa'ed Hussein, 51. Of the council members, he said: "They're supposed to represent the Iraqi people, but they have no roots."

Al-Jaafari insists Iraqis support him.

"I have no statistics, but people love me. They see that I am not very happy about being president, because I love to live a normal life," he said in an interview this weekend in the council's new offices.

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