Iraqis ‘Looking at Various Options’ for Vote After Bush Talks

President Bush met Tuesday with the president of the Iraqi Governing Council and a leader who acts as a go-between for the Shiite cleric who is demanding direct elections in Iraq.

Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni Muslim who is the current council president, said after seeing Bush that “we are looking at various options and we hope to be able to make certain refinements.”

Bush made no public statement.

The Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has pressed for direct elections on the selection of an interim government and on the presence of U.S. troops.

The administration contends that there is not enough time to hold elections before June 30, but it is willing to refine a complex system of caucuses to choose an interim parliament.

Abdelaziz Hakim, a Shiite leader who is on the council and is close to Sistani, also attended the meetings. Hakim said he had told Bush that “we should have elections in Iraq and that we should keep to the timetable of the transfer of sovereignty.”

“That is why we demanded the United Nations to send a technical mission to decide the feasibility of the election,” he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to send a delegation to Baghdad for more talks, diplomats said.

On Monday, tens of thousands of Iraqis marched in Baghdad to demand direct elections. Tuesday, a much smaller crowd of about 5,000 marched to demand that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein be executed.

“Saddam is a war criminal, not a POW. Execute Saddam,” the crowd chanted.

Meanwhile, a missile landed in the sprawling U.S. compound in central Baghdad late Tuesday but caused little damage, a U.S. spokesman said. Officials were investigating a report that one person was wounded.

The “green zone” compound has several offices and residences of the U.S. military and civilian authorities involved in governing Iraq since Hussein’s ouster in April.

Elsewhere, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates said Tuesday after talks with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III that they would waive most of the more than $7 billion Iraq owes them.