Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi has died at the age of 96, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced Sunday. The late diplomat was a member of the Governing Council set up by the Americans after their invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Pachachi is a veteran politician and diplomat in Iraq. He held key posts as foreign minister in the 1960s.
Adnan Muzahim Pachachi was born on 14 May 1923 in Baghdad and belongs to a prominent Iraqi political family. His father is Muzahim Pachachi, a prominent politician who was prime minister of Iraq during the 1947 Palestine War.
Adnan was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria and at the American University of Beirut in 1943, where he earned a BA in Political Science.
In 1950, he was appointed assistant director of the Political Department of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. He continued to serve in the Ministry for eight years, and was dismissed due to his Nasserite inclinations.
The next day, July 14, 1958, the monarchy in Iraq was overthrown in a revolution led by leader Abdul Karim Qasim. Pachachi was immediately appointed as Iraq's permanent representative to the United Nations.
Adnan Pachachi was outside Iraq when the Baath Party overthrew the rule of Abdul Rahman Aref in the coup of July 17, 1968, and decided not to return to Iraq, and joined the government of Abu Dhabi and worked in 1971, and spent his years as a consultant to the UAE government.
After the occupation of Iraq in 2003, Pachachi returned to Iraq, and his then governor, US Ambassador Paul Bremer, appointed him to the Governing Council, which was formed on 12 July 2003.
The council granted partial powers in running Iraq, but real power was in the hands of the US occupation forces and their representative Bremer.