By Bassem Mroue
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq | Iraq’s new governing council, acting confidently in its first full day on the job, voted Monday to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council and assert its right to represent Baghdad on the world stage.

But in a reminder of the challenges faced by the new council as it takes its initial steps toward what is hoped to be a transition to democracy, an explosion wrecked a car near the council’s meeting site.

The council, announced Sunday, will have real political muscle with the power to name ministers and approve the 2004 budget. But final control of Iraq rests with L. Paul Bremer — the U.S. administrator of Iraq and a major architect of the council.

The 25-member body — comprised of prominent Iraqis from all walks of political and religious life — announced the delegation it was sending to the United Nations would ‘‘assert and emphasize the role of the governing council as a legitimate Iraqi body during this transitional period.’’

Ever since Saddam’s U.N. Ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri, left New York on April 11, Iraqi diplomats have kept a very low profile at the United Nations. Al-Douri did not resign and Iraq’s U.N. Mission remains open, with the former third-ranking diplomat, Said Shihab Ahmad, in charge.

On Monday, the Iraqi governing council also formed three committees to outline an order of business for the coming weeks and work out organizational issues, said Hoshyar Zebari, a spokesman for the council. The council had planned to select a leader, but Zebari said that would be done later.

After the meeting had broken up, an explosion about a quarter-mile from the compound turned a black four-wheel drive vehicle owned by the Tunisian Embassy into a burned-out metal hulk. The site of the blast was a parking lot where journalists leave cars ahead of news conferences

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