Iraq Wants U.S. Choice Out as Chief Of Brigade

In an interview, Taha said the Iraqi brigade to which he was assigned during the U.S. invasion dissolved without fighting. He later went to work for a satellite telephone company in Baghdad, then joined the new U.S.-backed Iraqi army in the summer of 2004.

As a Sunni Arab from Baghdad, he would help diversify the army's top ranks, which are currently dominated by Shiites and Kurds, U.S. officers said. Infusing the military with more Sunni Arabs -- the minority group that led the country under Saddam Hussein and makes up most of Iraq's insurgency -- could improve stability in restive Sunni regions where security forces are mistrusted.

"The military must be a balance between all the Iraqi sides," Taha said. "There is no need for one side to control everything. All Iraqis should be represented."

Another Defense Ministry spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Taha had been a member of Hussein's elite Special Republican Guard and a high-level member of Hussein's Baath Party. Taha denies both claims.

Iraq's army was disbanded soon after the U.S. invasion, and former top officers were initially precluded from rejoining. But Iraq's Defense Ministry has embraced the return of many former commanders, who now make up the bulk of the new officer corps.

Cardon said the Defense Ministry's unnamed candidate is a brigadier general from Kut, a predominantly Shiite city southeast of Baghdad.

"Maybe the guy the government wants is the greatest officer in Iraq, or maybe he is the worst, we don't know," said Capt. Ed Ballanco, 31, of Montvale, N.J., commander of the military training team that is partnered with the Iraqi 5th Brigade. "I do know that Colonel Muhammed is by far and away the most professional officer I have worked with in this country."

Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, a spokesman for the multinational force responsible for training the Iraqi army, said he was surprised that the brigade's official rating had fallen so far based on the prospect of a different commander.

"My concern is we're investing ourselves in a person through personal loyalty, which is good, but that we are not allowing the system to work itself out," he said. "We have asked the Iraqis to take control of their ministry and that is what they are doing."

Cardon said American officials are increasingly concerned that the cohesion and quality of the Iraqi army will suffer because politics or sectarian considerations, rather than merit, determine appointments. Iraq's defense minister, Sadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab and former academic, is widely expected to leave his post when a new government is formed based on last month's elections.

"You watch to see how many brigade commanders change jobs when you have a new defense minister," Cardon said. "It is very dangerous to politicize the leadership like this. The question then becomes, are you loyal to the country or to a political party?"

During the standoff over his appointment, Taha has received threatening phone calls. Cardon said he believes some of them are coming from officers within the Defense Ministry because the callers reached him on his cell phone. "Sometimes those death threats aren't just from insurgents, so I worry about his future," Cardon said.

Taha said he did not know why his appointment has been opposed. "I am the best among the officers and I don't know why they are against me," he said. "I am waiting and whatever God decides is all right."