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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush plans to name John Negroponte, the United States' current ambassador to the United Nations, as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, an administration official said Monday.
The president planned to make the announcement in the Oval Office later Monday, the official said.
Bush had recruited the 64-year-old Negroponte from the corporate world to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
In New York, Negroponte, a career foreign service officer, worked to help win agreement on expanding the mandate of an international security force in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban government.
Negroponte will become ambassador in Baghdad when the United States hands over political power to an interim Iraqi government by a June 30 deadline.
The current top U.S. official in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, is expected to leave the country once the political transition is completed.
Thousands of U.S. troops will remain in the country even after the political transition is complete.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
