Oops! Plan D, anyone? This would be a Marx Brothers movie if human beings weren't being blown up everyday, for real.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 26 — The American plan to turn over power in Iraq more quickly was thrown into disarray on Wednesday when the country's most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made public his opposition to a proposal for indirect elections.
"All of us are groping around right now," an administration official said in Washington, acknowledging that the plan worked out earlier this month by the Iraqi Governing Council and L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator of Iraq, would have to be revised.
Spokesmen for Ayatollah Sistani, who exercises strong influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, said he insisted that the election, planned for June, be a direct ballot and not the caucus-style vote called for in the American plan. He also insists that the new Iraqi government have a more overtly Islamic character.
"The people should have a basic role in issues concerning the destiny of their country," Abdul Aziz al- Hakim, a Shiite cleric and politician, said in an interview. Mr. Hakim said he discussed the American proposal with Ayatollah Sistani on Tuesday.
Shiites account for about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people and so could benefit from a direct vote.
Under the current plan, which has been fraying almost since it was approved by both sides on Nov. 15, council members and local governments are to choose a transitional assembly — several hundred Iraqis from every region and social sector. That assembly is to choose an interim government in June, and that indirectly elected interim government is supposed to draft a constitution. ...
In Washington, administration officials said a plan establishing Iraqi self-rule by June 30 would have to at least partly accommodate the ayatollah's insistence on a popular vote.
Such a ballot in the next several months is widely seen as impractical, however. Instead, administration officials said, a system of provincial and local elections, town meetings and caucuses of civic leaders throughout Iraq might be acceptable to Ayatollah Sistani.
"The nub of this is, how do we get to enough elections in enough places to satisfy the ayatollah's insistence on elections," one official said. "We should be able to do it." ...
Ayatollah Sistani's objections were a further blow to a plan that had already begun to unravel. Earlier this week, leaders of the Governing Council said they would like to back away from their agreement to dissolve the council as soon as elections are held in June, and instead to preserve it as a second legislative body, a kind of senate. ...
Communications between official Iraqis and official Americans have been difficult from the start of the occupation in May. On Wednesday, for example, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the first American administrator, acknowledged in an interview with the BBC that his office had made a "bad job" of communicating with Iraqis.
Uh...can't anybody here play this game? Is this a Big League club or a Single A rookie league squad?
American officials have insisted that a direct election cannot be held now because there are no voter rolls. A census must be taken first, and that cannot be completed until late next year at the earliest.
But a senior Shiite leader on Wednesday pushed a United Nations proposal to use its food-rations registry as a voter list so elections could be held next spring.
Both American and Iraqi officials have said they believe the real motivation for insisting on direct elections is that the clerics hope the nation's Shiite majority will empower religious leaders to form an Islamic government, an idea the United States opposes.
Mr. Hakim himself said one of Ayatollah Sistani's objections was that "there is no emphasis on the role of Islam and the identity of the Muslim people."
"There should have been a stipulation which prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam in the new Iraq," Mr. Hakim added, summarizing the ayatollah's views. ...
"Some Iraqis perceive the process as being too rushed to fit the American presidential elections," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a member of the Governing Council who is close to Ayatollah Sistani. "We don't mind helping our partners. We understand their requirements. And we will consider helping them."
The view that the United States elections play a major role in shaping Iraq's political future is widely held among council members.
Geeze, you mean these folks also see through Dubya's motives? That would imply that they're at least as sophisticated regarding democracy as most Republicans.
Ahmad Chalabi, another council member, said: "The whole thing was set up so President Bush could come to the airport in October for a ceremony to congratulate the new Iraqi government. When you work backwards from that, you understand the dates the Americans were insisting on." American officials deny that electoral concerns played a role in their planning.
