The United States does not recognize a former exile who says he is governor of Baghdad and Washington thinks his deputy cannot represent Iraq at an emergency OPEC meeting this week, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.Barbara Bodine, coordinator for central Iraq in the U.S. civil administration overseeing reconstruction, said Washington did not recognize Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, who declared last week he was chief of an interim council to run the capital.

"We don't really know much about him except that he's declared himself mayor," said Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen.

"We don't recognize him. There hasn't been a process of selection. Once there's a process, then whomever."

Zubaidi said he was a member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and was elected by people representing clerics, academics, Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis, Christians, writers and journalists.

However, neither he nor U.S. officials have explained how or when the elections took place and who organized them.

Zabaidi said he was in close contact with the U.S. military and his council was working with them to switch power back on, resume supplies of fuel and cooking gas, and set up a Baghdad radio station.

OPEC DELEGATION UNLIKELY

Zubaidi's self-styled deputy, Jawdat al-Obeidi, told Reuters on Sunday he would lead an Iraqi delegation to the emergency meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries starting on Thursday in Vienna.

"He can't," said Bodine during a visit to Baghdad by Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general heading the U.S. civilian administration for postwar Iraq.

"I don't think OPEC would take him. We wouldn't prevent him but I would find it odd that OPEC would accept him as a representative," she said.

Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has said only a government recognized by the United Nations could represent Iraq at the OPEC meeting, an Iranian newspaper reported on Monday.

Top OPEC officials said Iraq had not yet formally asked to send a delegation to the meeting.

"As of now we have no request from Iraq to be represented at the meeting," OPEC Secretary-General Alvaro Silva told Reuters. "We're faced with a very irregular situation in Iraq and these matters will have to be decided by the ministers."

The OPEC meeting to review market conditions and output policy was called after oil prices dropped by about 30 percent in one month.

The choice of representatives had presented Washington with an awkward diplomatic problem. It has de facto control of the country after toppling Saddam Hussein but does not want to appear to dictate Iraqi policy, especially on oil.

U.S. officials had said it was possible nobody would represent Iraq at the OPEC meeting. One OPEC source said last week the cartel had invited Saddam's oil minister, who is on a U.S. wanted list.

DE FACTO LEADERS

Garner, speaking at a sewage treatment plant south of Baghdad, also cast doubts over Iraqis claiming positions of authority.
"There are a lot of de facto leaders," he said.

"I don't know who they are but our goal is to start a process whereby the Iraqi people elect their own leaders. We think the playing field is level. We haven't appointed anyone or recognized anyone."

Garner heads the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which was set up to help rebuild Iraq and prepare for an eventual interim government made up of Iraqis.

PHOTO CAPTION

The U.S. does not recognize a former exile, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, who says he is governor of Baghdad and Washington thinks his deputy cannot represent Iraq at an OPEC meeting this week, a senior U.S. official said April 21, 2003. Zubaidi walks outside the Palestine hotel in Baghdad in this April 16 file photo. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)