WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - The White House wants to appoint a high-profile overseer to manage the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but has had trouble finding someone to take the job, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

At least three retired four’star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have turned down the position, the report said.

The war “czar” would report directly to U.S. President George W. Bush and national security adviser Stephen Hadley and would have authority to issue directions to the Pentagon and the State Department, the newspaper said.

Retired Marine Gen. John “Jack” Sheehan, a former top NATO commander, was among those who rejected the job, the newspaper reported.

“The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,” Sheehan told the Post.

Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Dick Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq, the Post reported.

“So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No, thanks,’ ” Sheehan told the paper.

More at Reuters

PROVO, Utah, April 10 - The invitation extended to Vice President Dick Cheney to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University has set off a rare, continuing protest at the Mormon university, one of the nation’s most conservative.

Some of the faculty and the 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, who are overwhelmingly Republican, have expressed concern about the Bush administration’s support for the war in Iraq and other policies, but most of the current protest has focused on Mr. Cheney’s integrity, character and behavior. Several students said, for example, that they were appalled at Mr. Cheney’s use of an expletive on the Senate floor in a June 2004 exchange with Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

“The problem is this is a morally dubious man,” said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. “It’s challenging the morality and integrity of this institution.”

More at the New York Times

GENEVA - The situation for civilians in Iraq is “ever-worsening,” even though security in some places has improved as a result of stepped-up efforts by U.S.-led multinational forces, the international Red Cross said Wednesday.

Thousands of bodies lie unclaimed in mortuaries, with family members either unaware that they are there or too afraid to go to recover them, according to a key official with the neutral agency. Medical professionals also have been fleeing the country after cases where their colleagues were killed or abducted, the group said.

“Whatever operation that is today under way, and that may be taken tomorrow and in the weeks after, to improve the security of civilians on the ground may have an effect in the medium term,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC.

“We’re certainly not seeing an immediate effect in terms of stabilization for civilians currently. That is not our reading,” he said.

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