President Bush plans to nominate Zalmay Khalilzad as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Mr. Khalilzad, an Afghan-American, is currently the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
Senior administration officials say Mr. Khalilzad is the president's choice to succeed John Negroponte in the challenging post in Baghdad. No formal announcement has been made yet. The president has nominated Mr. Negroponte to be the United States' first Director of National Intelligence.
In 2003, Mr. Bush asked Mr. Khalilzad to oversee elections and reconstruction efforts in war-ravaged Afghanistan. Before that, he was one of the top national security advisers in the Bush administration.
Some information for this story provided by AP and Reuters.
