Shiite Leader Reluctantly Backs U.S. Transition Plan

In a boost for the Bush administration, Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, signaled his reluctant support Thursday for a U.S.-backed blueprint to create an Iraqi caretaker government until direct elections can be held.

But the man considered to be one of the most influential in Iraq also called for a United Nations guarantee of elections by the end of the year and appeared to warn that he would not tolerate further delays. Shiites are the largest group in the country, accounting for more than 60% of the population.

The pointed declaration from a powerful leader who has twice helped scuttle plans for the transfer of power in Iraq helps open the way for Washington to end its official occupation by June 30.

Plans call for political power to be turned over on that date to a still-undetermined body of Iraqis who would govern until direct elections are held. However, U.S. troops are expected to remain in the country for at least another year under terms of an agreement to be negotiated with a new Iraqi administration.

From his base in the holy city of Najaf, the reclusive Sistani has pushed for direct elections, which presumably would lead to a government dominated by Iraq’s long-repressed Shiite majority. Shiite protesters routinely hoist his image aloft in marches to demand such balloting.

“It is vital to understand that this [provisional] government is going to be valid for a short period of time and that it should be replaced as soon as possible by a democratically elected and fully recognized” body, said a statement issued by Sistani’s office in Najaf, south of Baghdad.

U.S. officials are well aware of Sistani’s ability to call masses of supporters to the streets, and they have sought to accommodate him.

The cleric’s declaration did not come as a complete surprise, as it followed a U.N. report Monday saying proper elections would be impossible in strife-torn Iraq until at least the end of the year. It was Sistani who pushed for the U.N. review after he rejected U.S. assertions that credible direct elections could not be held until next year in a violence-plagued country that lacks electoral rolls, an accurate census and other election infrastructure.

Sistani’s shift -- however tentative -- is clearly a victory for the Bush administration, which is confronted by mounting casualties and political instability in Iraq during a presidential election year. U.S. officials here have increasingly deferred to the U.N. on the question of when and how a direct vote could be held.

“We have been turning to the U.N. and other outside experts to tell us how viable direct elections are in the near future,” a senior U.S. official told reporters after Sistani’s statement was released.

The official said it would be premature to comment on the cleric’s demand that the U.N. Security Council issue a resolution binding Iraq to hold elections by the end of the year.

The U.N.’s special representative to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, is to return to the country shortly.

He is expected to meet with Iraqi and U.S. representatives to help work out an election plan that is acceptable to Sistani and other Iraqis.

Shiites favor quick elections, but other factions -- notably the nation’s Sunni Muslim minority -- fear that such an approach could harm their prospects for power sharing. Sunnis have been dominant in Iraq for decades, and the U.S.-led invasion and takeover has cost them that advantage.

The insurgency is largely based in the Sunni zone in the nation’s center and west.

Before elections can be held, a provisional government must be ready to take over June 30. The form of the caretaker government remains unclear. Brahimi also is expected to work on that issue with the Iraqis.

In his declaration, Sistani demanded that the interim government be created with “clear and limited” authority.

A U.S. plan for regional caucuses to elect a provisional national assembly met with stiff opposition from Sistani and was dropped.

His protests also helped derail an earlier U.S. blueprint that would have put off elections until 2005.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council is seeking to put the final touches on an interim constitution to be used until a final document can be drawn up and adopted. An agreement worked out last year made Saturday the deadline for the so-called transitional administrative law.

The interim document will address issues such as equal rights and religious freedom, and enshrine principles such as separation of powers, civilian control of the military and federalism. Several sections remain controversial: Autonomy-minded ethnic Kurds, for example, are wary of federalism, whereas some Muslims are seeking to impose some aspects of Sharia, or Islamic law.

The U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, must sign the interim document.

In other developments, the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said at a Baghdad briefing that Iraq’s security situation had improved and that the country was “manageable for whatever government process that needs to take place.”

The threat from supporters of ousted President Saddam Hussein has diminished, he said, and the “terrorist element” has begun to take “preeminence.”

Yet the violence continues, often targeting Iraqi security officials. A policeman was killed and several people were injured Thursday north of Baghdad when a homemade bomb was placed on the officer’s car, authorities said.

Sanchez said an accident, not hostile fire, was behind Wednesday’s crash of an Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopter that killed two pilots. The helicopter hit a power line, he said.

Asked about Hussein, Sanchez said only that he was in good health.

The whereabouts of the former leader, who was captured in December, is a closely guarded secret, though he is thought to be in Iraq. The International Committee of the Red Cross visited him in jail Saturday for the first time, but no details were provided.