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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick Faurot who wrote (35412)	1/17/2004 12:14:31 AM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

From your post "It was not correct for Kofi Annan to sit in New York and say it," Salami said. "We feel this was all a maneuver. If the commission came, investigated and said there is no way, then an alternative would have to be found." He was evasive about whether Sistani would accept a U.N. judgment. "There is a lack of trust," he said. Salami spoke dismissively of Bremer, with whom Sistani has refused to meet. "It's a feeling we will not get anything from Bremer. My evaluation is, there is no profit in a meeting with him," he said. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also there is this The United States, faced with mounting resistance to its transitional plans in Iraq from a leading Shiite Muslim cleric, wants the United Nations to send a team to Iraq to determine whether elections are feasible in the coming months and, if not, to help negotiate a compromise, U.S. and U.N. officials said today. The request for such a team is to be made Monday when L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Adnan Pachachi, the current head of the Iraqi Governing Council, visit U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York. The scheduled meeting will mark the first time that Bremer has appeared at the United Nations since taking over as administrator of the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq last year. In asking for a U.N. team to be sent to Baghdad, officials said, the Bush administration is signaling that it wants to involve the United Nations in trying to gain support for its transition plans from Shiites led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a leading Shiite cleric and Iraq's most popular religious leader. Sistani has denounced a U.S. plan, endorsed by the Iraqi Governing Council Nov. 15, to convene regional caucuses to select members of a new Iraqi assembly, which in turn would choose a provisional government by a June 30 deadline for the United States to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis. Sistani wants the new government to be chosen through direct elections, a demand that U.S. officials say is unreasonable because the country has no election law, up-to-date voters lists or experience with democracy enabling it to hold nationwide voting within such a short time frame. ... from washingtonpost.com >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tonight on the PBS News Hour, I listened to Juan Cole from U. of Michigan. He said the regional caucuses the Bremer is talking about are not that at all. Rather, they are regional assemblies that are hand picked by the US and British. Moreover, they are dominated by Sunni and ex-Baathists. He left little doubt that the Shia will not submit to even an interim government that is picked by these assemblies. This is what I believe is behind Sistani's statements. Hence, no matter what the UN says about elections, the current regional assemblies are unacceptable to the Shia as a basis for an Iraqi government. JMO lurqer