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The Security Council of the United Nations approved a resolution on Iraq presented by the United States and Britain; it included provision for the interim government to ask a multinational force in the country to leave. But the Iraqi government must not take ‘any actions affecting Iraq’s destiny beyond the limited interim period’; this is thought to refer principally to the constitution and long-term oil contracts. Elections to a transitional assembly are due in January 2005 and to a permanent government at the end of 2005, when the multinational force envisaged will reach the end of its mandate. Mr Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister of Iraq, said that his government had reached agreement with nine militias totalling about 100,000 men to disband. Car bombs in Mosul and elsewhere killed 15 Iraqis. The bombing of an oil pipeline cut power production for the national grid. American special forces freed three Italians and a Pole held south of Baghdad. At least 17 people wanted in connection with the Madrid train bombing in March were arrested in raids in Milan, Brussels, Antwerp and locations in France and Spain. American soldiers fought the Taleban in Afghanistan, killing perhaps 21 in the Daychopan district of Zabul province in the south. Mr George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned, as did Mr James Pavitt, its deputy director for operations — the man in charge of overseas spying. Mr George Bush, the President of the United States, went to Rome, where the Pope told him to return sovereignty to Iraq. Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States from 1981 to 1989, died, aged 93; his body lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington before a state funeral which included a pre-recorded eulogy by Lady Thatcher. Dom Moraes, the Indian poet, died, aged 65. The heart of Louis XVII was buried in the royal crypt at St Denis; he died in prison in 1795, aged 10, two years after his father’s execution.
CSH
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