Basra, Iraq ? A “nucleus of leadership” in Iraq may be in place within days to guide the country through the decisive selection of an interim government, the U.S. civil administrator said Monday.

Iraq’s third-largest city, Mosul, is already moving ahead. Representatives of its tribal and ethnic groups named a cross-section of residents Monday to run municipal affairs alongside the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, in an example of the lawlessness of the ousted Iraqi regime, The New York Times reported Monday on its Web site that Saddam Hussein removed nearly $1 billion in cash from the country’s Central Bank shortly before U.S. forces began bombing Baghdad.

The operation, which took place at 4 a.m. on March 18, was confirmed by U.S. Treasury official George Mullinax, who is assigned to help rebuild Iraq’s banking system.

With the Iraqi president gone, U.S. officials have been consulting five anti-Saddam Iraqi leaders in their efforts to form an interim national government ahead of a critical conference at the end of May.

“The five opposition leaders have begun having meetings, and they are going to bring in leaders from inside Iraq and see if we can’t form a nucleus of leadership as we enter into June,” said retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the American civil administrator. “By the middle of the month you’ll really see the nucleus of a temporary Iraq government.”

The five involved in the consultations are Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani; Ahmad Chalabi of the exiled opposition Iraqi National Congress; Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord; and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, whose elder brother heads the Shiite Muslim group Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

In the northern city of Mosul, about 230 representatives from the city’s main families and ethnic groups voted for mayor and 23 delegates to the 32-member city council, said Fadhil Mirani, one of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s representatives to the meeting.

Retired army Gen. Ghanim al-Boso, an Arab, was selected as mayor; a Kurd, Khasro Goran, was chosen as deputy mayor; and an ethnic Assyrian and an ethnic Turk were selected as the mayor’s assistants.

The newly elected Mosul city and Nineveh province interim council members stand together for the first time following elections at the old Baath Party Social Club in Mosul, Iraq. With American backing, about 230 electors from the city's main families and ethnic groups voted Monday for mayor and 23 delegates to the 32-member city council.

Other developments

• A top Iraqi scientist is in U.S. custody, according to Washington officials who suspect she has information about banned biological weapons. U.S.-educated Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, detained Sunday, is the 19th of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis to be arrested. She was designated the five of hearts in the U.S. military’s deck of cards.
• Baghdad’s airport is expected to be running by the end of the month, U.S. military officers say.
• Alarmed by reports of widespread looting at Iraq’s main nuclear site, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has asked the United States to let it send a mission to the facility, a spokeswoman said.
• Britain reopened what used to be its Baghdad embassy on Monday, claiming to be the first country that evacuated diplomats before the 1991 Gulf War to re-establish a permanent presence in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.