BAGHDAD, 18 April 2003 — Iraq’s confused postwar administrative landscape became even more blurred yesterday as US forces denied sanctioning the appointments of two Iraqis claiming to be the governor and mayor of Baghdad.

Two close associates of an Iraqi opposition leader said they had been elected governor and mayor of Baghdad by tribal and religious chiefs acting with the consent of occupying US troops.

But Capt. Joe Plenzler, a spokesman for the US Marines here, shot down the claim. “Anyone declaring themselves as mayor or anything else is just not true. The US government has not appointed anyone.”

“Anyone can call themselves anything they want to,” Plenzler told AFP. “But future appointments like this will be handled through USAID (the US Agency for International Development).”

Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, a veteran anti-Saddam politician, looked official enough with a huge media entourage to boot as he proclaimed himself head of a new interim administration for Baghdad.

Zubaidi said Iraq’s political life was reawakening, with 65 parties preparing to resume activities banned by the regime before the fall of Baghdad on April 9.

“We will be a model of democracy,” the 51-year-old Zubaidi told a news conference at the Palestine Hotel before leaving on a tour of the battered capital with a flock of reporters and photographers in tow. Zubaidi, who spent 15 years in northern Iraq and was under a death sentence from Saddam’s regime, said he was heading an executive committee tasked with restoring normalcy. Zubaidi is a close associate of Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi who is backed by the Pentagon for a future leadership role. He was vague about the interim arrangements but said they could include members of Saddam’s Baath Party except “the criminals — and they know who they are — who will not dare to sit with us”. Zubaidi said he and INC “General” Jaudat Obeidi, named interim mayor of the capital of five million people, had been coordinating with the US forces here and meeting with them every day.

Chalabi arrived in Baghdad late Wednesday and was staying in a house that once belonged to one of Saddam’s sons.