U.S. Asks U.N. to Go to Iraq, Assess Feasibility of Vote

As tens of thousands of people marched in Baghdad on Monday urging direct elections to choose a new government, U.S. and Iraqi officials asked the United Nations to send in a team of experts to determine whether a free and fair vote could be organized before June -- and if not, to propose alternatives.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would study the request and answer as soon as possible. U.S. officials were optimistic that Annan would agree and dispatch a team quickly, perhaps as early as next week. Security Council President Heraldo Munoz of Chile said the council supported sending a team and expected Annan would do so.

Until now, the U.S. had planned to select a transitional government by the end of June through caucuses in each of Iraq’s 18 governates, but it is coming under increasing pressure from the nation’s majority Shiite Muslims to hold a direct vote.

Monday’s peaceful march in Baghdad, which by some estimates drew 100,000 people, was the largest demonstration since the war’s end. The turnout came after similar protests last week in the southern city of Basra and was a reminder of the power wielded by Shiites, who make up about 60% of the population.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the top Shiite leader in Iraq, has called for direct elections. Monday’s demonstration increased fears inside and outside the Bush administration that if Sistani’s demands were not met, he could issue an edict not only declaring the new Iraqi government illegitimate but attacking the American presence in Iraq.

At Monday’s march, many protesters chanted: “Yes, yes to Islam! Yes, yes to the Hawza! No, no to terrorism!” The Hawza is a network of Islamic seminaries headed by a handful of clerics, including Sistani, considered religious authorities.

Carrying aloft pictures of the septuagenarian Sistani, many in the crowd proclaimed their allegiance to him: “Sistani, Sistani, we are your soldiers of liberation.” Sistani said Monday that he had not called for the demonstrations and that they had been organized by supporters. However, clerics who work for him or are loyal to him have been actively involved and have participated as speakers.

There are a number of political and religious currents among Iraq’s Shiites, but Monday’s rally attracted them all, including people loyal to fundamentalist firebrand Muqtader Sadr and the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

After meeting with Annan in New York on Monday morning, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, and members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council made it clear that the June 30 date they had agreed on for Iraqis to take back control of their country was not negotiable.

“We are in Iraq united on one issue, and that is: We shall maintain the deadline of June 30 for the transfer of sovereignty and power to the Iraqi provisional government,” said Adnan Pachachi, the current Governing Council president.

But Bremer made it equally clear that the mechanism for choosing the transitional Iraqi government was up for discussion. By inviting in the United Nations, the U.S. is gambling that U.N. experts will support Annan’s initial view that it would not be feasible to hold elections before June 30. But if the experts decided an election could be organized, the U.S. would be hard-pressed to dispute their findings.

Pachachi said it would be preferable to hold direct elections for the transitional government. But if the U.N. declared that it would be impossible to have free and fair elections on such short notice, Pachachi said it would be important for the U.N. to explain that decision to the Iraqi public and suggest alternatives. The Shiites have rejected such declarations by the Americans and the Governing Council, but Pachachi’s remarks indicated they might accept such an assessment from the United Nations.

The de facto deadline for the U.N. experts to announce their decision is mid-February. That’s because the Governing Council is scheduled to submit by Feb. 28 its draft of a “transitional law,” which would function as a working constitution until a final document could be completed and submitted to the Iraqi public for approval in 2005.

The transitional law would specify how the interim government would be chosen. Under the current plan, the first elections for a national legislature would not be held until the second half of 2005.

The mid-February deadline leaves little time for Annan to make a decision or for the political experts, if dispatched, to do their work. Yet Annan took pains Monday to not even hint that he was likely to grant the U.S. and Iraqi request -- whether out of concern for the security of his staff or because, after months of conflict with the United States, he did not want to be seen as caving in to the Americans.

Annan said there was broad agreement that the U.N., which pulled out of Iraq after two bombings of its Baghdad headquarters last fall, would have “an important role” after July 1 in helping the new Iraqi government with constitutional and electoral issues, reconstruction and human rights.

“I think we all agree that elections are going to be necessary,” Annan said. “Indeed, there is provision for two sets of elections in 2005. The issue now is whether the technical, political or security conditions exist for general direct elections to take place as early as May of this year.”

But as to a role for the United Nations before June 30, Annan said, “we have agreed that further discussions should take place at the technical level.... On the basis of those discussions, I would be in a better position to take decisions about what the U.N. can do to help, particularly regarding the possible dispatch of a mission to Iraq to advise on elections.”

The technical discussions among U.S. and U.N. experts began Monday afternoon, but there was no immediate word on the outcome. A State Department official said little more had been said in private than was agreed upon in public.

U.N. officials had warned their U.S. counterparts not to expect a snap decision from Annan on Monday. But the U.S. and Iraqi officials pressed him to act quickly. Annan answered, “I hear you,” a U.N. official said.

Both Bremer and the Iraqi officials promised to do everything possible to guarantee the security of any team Annan sent. But in the wake of Sunday’s massive bombing at the gates of the U.S.-led occupation’s headquarters in Baghdad, Annan noted pointedly that there was no such thing as a guarantee of security in Iraq.

At the same time, Annan deftly deflected the issue of any lingering U.S.-U.N. tension when a journalist noted that the Bush administration “has not been particularly friendly to the United Nations,” and asked whether Annan had “any reason to want to pull America’s chestnuts out of the fire” by intervening between the U.S. and Sistani.

“The stability of Iraqi should be everybody’s business,” Annan replied calmly. “We all agree that it will be easier after 1 July, when a provisional Iraqi government is established, but if we get it wrong at this stage, it will be even more difficult -- and we may not even get to the next stage.”

*

Efron reported from the United Nations and Rubin from Baghdad.

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

In stories after April 9, 2004, Shiite cleric Muqtader Sadr is correctly referred to as Muqtada Sadr.

--- END NOTE ---