The hardliner they call the gunslinger

John Negroponte's appointment as head of the ruling body in Iraq is one of the most controversial George Bush could have made.

The hardliner is a deeply divisive official who will bring the backing of the White House but the hatred of much of the Middle East to Baghdad.

To the hawks he is a hero who fought the spread of communism in central America and the first American ambassador to the UN to make condemnation of Palestinian militants Hamas a central part of US doctrine.

But to the Clinton White House he was an embarrassing relic of Eighties' collusion in dirty wars in Honduras and Nicaragua.

In the days before September 11 his appointment by Mr Bush as ambassador to the UN was political dynamite. Before being approved by Congress he faced days of grilling over allegations that at the very least he turned a blind eye to CIA-backed death squads in Honduras when he was ambassador there.

One critic accused Mr Negroponte of being "a gunslinger for a hyper-Reagan administration policy" of using any means to back the Contras.

But Mr Negroponte rejected the claims and told the Senate: "To this day I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras." In Baghdad he will be the key adviser to the Iraqi government, in control of the vast US aid budget, and run the 3,000-strong embassy.