Profile: Khalilzad tipped to play a big role

With the U.S. keen on establishing a civil administration for the reconstruction of Iraq, one of the select American officials tipped to play an important role in an interim government is Dr Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born American and the highest ranking Muslim in the White House.

As the Special U.S. Envoy for Afghanistan, Khalilzad, who taught political science at Columbia University, has a wide knowledge of the region coupled with the experience he has gained in supervising and consolidating a new order in his home country.

He was one of the high-ranking American officials who oversaw the dismantling of the Taliban and the weeding out of Al Qaida elements.

Although he believes that "the decision of who ultimately governs Iraq is a decision for the Iraqi people and Iraqis should be free to choose their own [form of] government, be it parliamentary or presidential, and to choose the form of relationship between its centre and the regions, including federalism", he is not much in favour of a new government comprising mostly exiled Iraqis.

"Along with the great respect that we have for our friends in the Iraqi opposition, we also have a great respect and sympathy for the many Iraqis who have been suffering inside the country under the Saddam Hussain regime."

Born in 1951, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Being a Special Assistant on South-west Asia, Near East and North Africa, he reports to President George W. Bush through Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.

Dr Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney Transition team for the Department of Defence and has been a Counsellor to Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld. Between 1993 and 1999, he was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure programme for RAND's Project Air Force.

RAND is a think tank supported by both private industry and the U.S. government but is generally accepted as a Pentagon research group. It advises on everything from public health issues to war with Iraq.

While with RAND, he founded the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. During his years with RAND, he wrote many articles and papers on Middle Eastern strategy. He has worked with a variety of conservative thinkers including Richard Perle, William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz.

Between 1991 and 1992, he served as Assistant Undersecre-tary of Defence for Policy Planning.

He also served as a senior political scientist at RAND. From 1985 to 1989, at the State Department, Dr. Khalilzad served as Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, advising on the Iran-Iraq War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The son of a government employee from Mazar-e-Sharif, Khalilzad came into the limelight when the U.S. State Department named him as the Special Envoy to Afghanistan on December 31, 2001.

It was a real achievement for someone who had visited the U.S. as a high school exchange student under the auspices of the American Field Service, a volunteer group associated with cultural and educational exch-anges.

He later attended the American University in Beirut.

Because of his background and both his personal and academic knowledge, he was hired as a special advisor to the Reagan State Department. There he encouraged support for mujahideens and others who were fighting against the Soviet occupation of his homeland.

He is highly regarded by conservative thinkers, which helped him to impress those who mattered in the Pentagon that earned him an appointment as assistant undersecretary of defence for policy planning. He held the post from 1991-92.

His friends brought him to the attention of Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Halliburton Corporation, who, along with Bush advisor, Karl Rove, brought Khalilzad on board the Bush team after the 2000 presidential election.

He headed the transition team that prepared the groundwork for the Bush presidency. And ever since his rise has been meteoric.

Although the State Depart-ment omits his brief stint as a contract analyst in 1997 for the oil company, Unocal, which wanted to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghani-stan, to Turkey, one thing is certain – he will be the one who will be close to the decision making centre in a new Iraq.

For how long? He has answered this query in the BBC's "Breakfast with Frost" show. "As long as militarily we are necessary to provide for security, to look after the needs of the Iraqi people, because by getting rid of the Saddam Hussain regime we'll be assuming certain responsibilities on behalf of the Iraqi people.

We also, of course, would want to eliminate the infrastructure for weapons of mass destruction and make sure they don't leave the country or fall into the wrong hands. And we would also want to get rid of any terrorist infrastructure that is there. But our plan will be from day one to get Iraq going and to get Iraq to stand on its own feet so that we can transfer responsibility to the Iraqis."

And it is not a question of weeks and months, but years.

A big role for the Afghan-American, who lives in Maryland.