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Iraq election date shaky
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says Iraqis want direct elections but they cannot be organised by June 30, the date Washington wants to relinquish power to an interim government in Baghdad.
This could mean a delay in the June 30 date or finding another method of choosing a provisional government, aside from the US plan for a caucus system which diplomats said was virtually dead.
Annan "understands there is a consensus emerging" for direct elections during the talks his senior adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, was having with a spectrum of Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
But Eckhard said the secretary-general believed "there is wide agreement that elections must be carefully prepared, and that they must be organised in technical, security and political conditions that give the best chance of producing a result that reflects the wishes of the Iraqi electorate".
Brahimi, who met Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Baghdad, appeared to have reached an understanding with Sistani that elections could not be organised quickly, UN diplomats said.
The Shi'ites, who have a 60 per cent majority, have been calling for direct elections by mid-year. "Everyone expects elections in 2005," Eckhard said.
"The question is what can be done before June 30 and if it can't be elections, what other way can you find to establish a legitimate government."
Any delay in the June 30 date would carry risks for President George W. Bush, who is being criticised for going to war to eliminate a threat from Iraq's biological and chemical weapons that have still not been found.
It would increase the chance that Iraq would loom larger in his campaign for re-election in November and open up his Administration to accusations that it is reneging on promises to let go of power.
Other alternatives are to hold a large conference to choose a provisional government but selecting who would attend would be a problem.
Brahimi expects to complete a report with his recommendations to Annan.
In Washington, Pentagon officials expressed concern that insurgents may be staging attacks in Iraq based on inside information about US operations after recent strikes against three high-profile Americans.
General John Abizaid, who commands US troops in the Gulf region, came under attack yesterday in Falluja when insurgents shot rocket-propelled grenades at his convoy. Abizaid and his party were unharmed.
The Pentagon was aware of the possibility that insurgents might seek to infiltrate Iraqi security forces created by the US or to place a "mole" inside US-led civilian operations in the country.
Insurgents have attacked two other senior US officials, who were unhurt.
On October 26, rockets struck the Baghdad hotel where Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, and on December 6, a motorcade carrying US civilian administrator Paul Bremer was ambushed near Baghdad International Airport on the same day Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was visiting Iraq.
nzherald.co.nz
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