WASHINGTON, 12 March 2005 — President Bush has named Zalmay Khalilzad, the ambassador to Afghanistan and a long-time national security adviser, as the new US ambassador to Baghdad, administration officials announced Thursday.
Khalilzad, an Afghan-American citizen, will replace John Negroponte, who is said to have found the job so “aggravating” he left after less than a year there. Last month, Bush named Negroponte as America’s first director of National Intelligence.
Khalilzad will take over one of the most closely watched and dangerous US diplomatic posts. Officials did not say who would succeed him in Afghanistan.
The new ambassador to Baghdad is expected to work with the new Iraqi government as it writes a new constitution and holds another round of elections in December. He will also be expected to work on smoothing out differences between factions in the new government — whose formation is now being negotiated by Iraqi leaders.
As ambassador to Afghanistan, Khalilzad encouraged negotiations between Hamid Karzai’s government and the Taleban. He is said to have urged the new government in Kabul to incorporate warlords in the Cabinet, recently praising the decision to make Abd Al-Rashid Dostum the chief of the country’s army.
While in Kabul, Khalilzad served as one of Washington’s few direct diplomatic channels to Iran. Early in 2003, he led talks in Geneva with leaders in Tehran over a proposed swap of senior leaders of Al-Qaeda in exchange for members of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, an anti-Iranian militia currently in the custody of American soldiers in Iraq. The White House eventually canceled the deal.
Earlier this month, Khalilzad held meetings with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq to discuss the prospects for the new government and urged the Iranians to remain cooperative during the political transition.
During Bush’s first term, Khalilzad served as a senior director on the president’s National Security Council staff.
