Good news from Iraq:

Chalabi Withdraws Bid to Be Next Iraqi PM

Interim Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen Tuesday to be his Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister after Ahmad Chalabi dropped his bid, senior alliance officials said.

Pressure from within the ranks of the winning United Iraqi Alliance forced the withdrawal of Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon favorite, said Hussein al-Moussai from the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella group for 38 Shiite parties.

"They wanted him to withdraw. They didn't want to push the vote to a secret ballot," al-Moussawi said....

--AP

Gee, a couple of days ago Chalabi was claiming he had the votes to win.

But I wonder if there's any truth in this, from the Christian Science Monitor:

Over the weekend, SCIRI leader Abdel-Aziz Hakim met with Chalabi and offered to make him the top financial overseer in Iraq, responsible for the oil, trade, and finance ministries in exchange for him withdrawing, according to the SCIRI official.

Oh, great -- let's make the fox Minister for Henhouses.

(CSM link via The Stakeholder.)