The Foreign Minister of Iraq’s Governing Council, Hoshyar Zebari, has announced the appointment of 54-year-old Rend Rahim Francke as the new Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.
This will be the first diplomatic appointment made by the Iraqi Governing Council.
Zebari said the appointment demonstrates that Iraq is on the right track to regaining its vitality, and indicated that appointing a woman is a statement to the American people, presenting a more liberal Iraq as opposed to Saddam Hussein’s regime.
As a representative of the new Iraqi Governing Council, Francke is in an awkward position, since she will technically be representing a country still under occupation.
Daughter of a Sunni father and a Shi’ite mother, Francke has spent much of the past decade lobbying for a democratic rule in Iraq. She was founder of the U.S.-based Iraq Foundation, which fought to bring former dictator Saddam Hussein to trial for war crimes.
Francke was born in Baghdad but became a U.S. citizen in 1987, after emigrating in 1981.