U.N. Envoy Sees Hope Amid Trouble for Iraq

U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi on Wednesday sharply criticized U.S. military tactics in Iraq but said it was still possible for an interim Iraqi government to be formed by June 30, when the U.S. plans to return sovereignty to the strife-torn nation.

Brahimi, commenting as he concluded an 11-day visit to Iraq, said he would make recommendations to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, including a proposal for forming an interim government and terminating the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council at the end of June.

The interim government, he said, would be made up of a prime minister, who would lead the Cabinet, and a president and two vice presidents. It is widely assumed that the president would be a Shiite Muslim, because Shiites compose the majority population in Iraq. The vice presidents probably would be a Sunni Muslim and an ethnic Kurd.

But, Brahimi added, “considerable” improvement in security would be necessary for national elections to be held as scheduled in January.

Brahimi’s visit came during the most violent period since the major combat phase of the war was declared over by President Bush last May. Bush, during a rare news conference Tuesday, insisted that plans for the June 30 sovereignty hand-over remained in place even though it was not yet clear how the transition would occur or who would take over. “We’ll find that out soon,” Bush said. “That’s what Mr. Brahimi is doing.”

Brahimi’s comments on the transition were well received Wednesday by U.S. officials, including L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq. But the plan still might face opposition from members of the Governing Council, who would find themselves without senior positions in the new order.

Bremer did not comment on Brahimi’s criticisms of U.S. military policies.

The United Nations envoy took issue with American military assaults on the Sunni Triangle town of Fallouja and the U.S. practice of unlimited detention of Iraqis suspected of engaging in hostile activities.

“I would like to renew here the expression of my deep sorrow for the loss of life and the destruction that has befallen Fallouja, parts of Baghdad and other places up and down the country,” Brahimi told a news conference in Baghdad.

“The collective punishments are not acceptable, cannot be acceptable, and to cordon off and besiege a city is not acceptable,” he said. “There is no military solution to the problems and ... the use of force, especially of excessive use of force, makes matters worse.”

In addition to Fallouja, Brahimi was referring to military operations targeting Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr and his militia. U.S. forces have threatened to use force in Najaf, a holy city south of Baghdad where Sadr has taken refuge.

Whether Brahimi’s criticisms will have an effect here is far from clear. Both U.S. and insurgent forces have deeply entrenched positions, but neither may want to alienate the United Nations, an organization that both sides might find advantageous to work with over the long term.

Negotiations between mediators and anti-American factions continued Wednesday in Fallouja and Najaf, with some apparent movement in the latter. Sadr agreed to drop some conditions for talks, as Iranian negotiators arrived in Iraq, joining the effort to avert a U.S. attack on Najaf.

Fighting nationwide since the beginning of April has left more than 80 U.S. troops and more than 700 Iraqis dead, according to U.S. military figures.

Violence across Iraq continued Wednesday with the abduction of two more Japanese citizens, according to a statement by the Japanese foreign minister, who was in Amman, the Jordanian capital, negotiating for the hostages’ release.

Also late Wednesday, the Al Jazeera satellite TV channel announced that one of four Italian hostages held by an Iraqi group had been killed. Al Jazeera said footage of the killing was too gruesome to air. Afterward, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi quickly promised to keep his troops in Iraq.

Most of the hostages seized in Iraq have been taken in the Sunni-dominated area between Baghdad and the Jordanian border.

In Fallouja, hopes for a peaceful solution were in short supply Wednesday. There were periods of heavy weapons fire between Marines and insurgents.

Marines cordoned off Fallouja and entered the city 35 miles west of Baghdad about 10 days ago after four U.S. civilian contractors were ambushed, slain and mutilated there. The result has been a series of battles with insurgents who often hid among civilians, the military said, although in recent days there has been a patchy cease-fire.

Hachim Hassani, an acting Iraqi Governing Council member who is mediating between leading Fallouja officials and the U.S. military, said he was increasingly nervous about the fate of the cease-fire, even after an eight-hour meeting between the two sides. He said he was worried that the U.S. authorities were holding the meetings only so they could say “we tried to find a political solution but we couldn’t.”

In Baghdad, Brahimi said that the interim government he was proposing would also include the formation of an interim national assembly, which would have consultative powers but no legislative role, because “you don’t need a legislative assembly for such a short period.”

The assembly, he said, would be chosen by a national conference that would be convened in July. Brahimi called such a conference “indispensable” in Iraq, where “for 30 years, [people] were afraid to talk in front of their children.”

The proposals would need to be approved by Bremer and the Governing Council, which had been seeking to perpetuate itself until next year’s planned national elections.

Bremer said the United States welcomed Brahimi’s proposals and indicated that the U.N.’s role was crucial to Iraq’s political development. He noted that the envoy’s visit and the work of the U.N. election team had been “highly constructive.”

The positive response was not surprising, since Bremer has said often that an interim government should be “technocratic” and untainted by politics

Brahimi said the U.S. policies to disband the Iraqi army, force members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party out of government and hold detainees indefinitely had caused “grievances that need to be addressed.”

“It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands of teachers, university professors, medical doctors and hospital staff, engineers and other professionals who are sorely needed have been dismissed within the de-Baathification process, and so far many of those cases have yet to be reviewed,” he said.

Brahimi added that the unlimited detention of Iraqi suspects should be remedied “now.”

He did not mince words about the strained relationship over the last year between the U.N. and the United States.

“We disagree from time to time.... Now, the United States disagrees also with other members of the United Nations, and I am sure you don’t need to be reminded that some of those disagreements took place in relations to Iraq not very long ago,” he said. He described the U.N. leadership as “reasonably satisfied” with its present relationship with the United States.

In Najaf, a widening circle of Shiite leaders attempted to play a role in mediating between the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and Sadr, prompted in large part by the fear that U.S. troops might storm into the holy city. Such action would almost certainly set off uncontrollable mass demonstrations and violence across the country.

Occupation officials are demanding that Sadr appear before an Iraqi judge for questioning in the killing last year of rival cleric Abdul Majid Khoei and that he disband his several-thousand-strong militia. About 2,500 U.S. troops are in the vicinity of Najaf, and commanding officers have said they are on a mission “to capture or kill” him.

An aide to Sadr announced Wednesday that the cleric was dropping his demand that U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq’s major cities and that the coalition authority release all prisoners associated with his militia or his other activities -- including some held in the Khoei case.

Whether the announcement was substantive or merely a bargaining tactic was difficult to tell. U.S. military commanders near Najaf said they observed Sadr’s forces fortifying their positions atop buildings and bridges.

In recent days, U.S. military officials have made preparations for mass arrests. They have completed construction near Najaf of a detention facility -- larger than four football fields -- to hold anticipated prisoners. But early today, U.S. forces were told that all planned raids and missions around Najaf were being suspended indefinitely.

Times staff writer Edmund Sanders near Najaf and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.