U.S. Sees Obstacles, but Shiite Cleric Sees Stalling in Iraq

The U.S. civil administrator for Iraq suggested Saturday that it could take as long as 15 months for elections to be held, a timetable squarely at odds with that of the nation’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric.

Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer III, in an interview with an Arab television channel, said Iraq needs to build up the proper infrastructure to support elections. “These technical problems will take time to fix,” he told Al Arabiya, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in written remarks released Saturday, said the U.S. has been “stalling” and failing to take the necessary steps to prepare for elections before its scheduled June 30 transfer of power to an Iraqi transitional government.

Sistani, who had pushed for spring elections, said that he would agree to a brief delay, but only with “clear assurances” that there would be no additional postponements. In written responses to questions from the German magazine Der Spiegel, he also called for a new United Nations resolution to set a firm election date.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan confirmed that a team of U.N. electoral experts who visited Iraq this month had concluded that the nation would not be ready for elections until the end of the year or early 2005. The new statements by Bremer and Sistani underscore the challenges facing the U.N. as it attempts to broker a compromise and bring stability to the region.

In his TV remarks, Bremer said that “the U.N. estimates somewhere between a year and 15 months” will be needed before elections can be held.

A spokesman for the CPA said afterward that Bremer did not intend to express a new coalition position or his own personal views about the proper timing for elections. Rather, he said, Bremer was merely describing the range of estimates from outside experts about the prospects for holding elections in Iraq.

“It is certainly not Ambassador Bremer’s view that it will take 15 months,” said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. “That’s one end of the range.”

The comments are also in line with the previous CPA election timetable, which called for elections beginning in March 2005. But Bremer’s comments come at a very sensitive time.

Many Iraqi Shiite leaders are suspicious that U.S. officials want to delay elections because they fear that the Shiite majority -- constituting an estimated 60% of Iraq’s population -- will take control of the government.

“This will raise even more doubts and suspicions about delays,” said Hamid Bayati, an official with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite party.

In ruling out elections before June 30, the U.N. experts cited security concerns and the lack of voter rolls or election laws.

Sistani, in criticizing delays, made his most in-depth public comments about how he would like to see Iraq rebuilt.

He said that any transitional government taking office before full elections should be strictly limited in its authority. The temporary body “should not be able to make important decisions related to future policies of the country,” he said.

In addition, Sistani -- who has refused to meet with Bremer -- said that Islamic law should be the basis of the new Iraqi constitution; that he did not want to establish a theocracy; that religious minorities should be respected; and that women should play a “major role” in the development of Iraq.

Bremer has indicated that, before the hand-over, he would veto laws proposed by the interim Iraqi Governing Council that would not protect the rights of women or minority groups.

In other developments Saturday, U.S. military officials said that an Iraqi translator was killed and four American soldiers were wounded when their convoy was attacked with small-arms fire in a morning ambush south of Iskandariya.

In the town of Dujayl, a soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed Friday when he was struck by a vehicle while walking alongside the highway to assist a truck that had broken down, authorities said.

Both incidents are under investigation.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross made its first visit to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, promising to deliver a letter -- checked first by U.S. military officials for hidden messages -- to members of his family.

Hussein, who was captured in December, was interviewed by Red Cross officials at an undisclosed location in Iraq.

“The aim of this visit is to track and monitor the conditions of detention and treatment of the detainee,” spokeswoman Nada Doumani told Associated Press from Amman, the Jordanian capital. “We want to see whether he is getting enough food and water and also to check his health condition and to give him the possibility to write a message to his family -- which he did.”

The Red Cross provided no details about Hussein’s health or living conditions.