U.S. Urges U.N. Return To Iraq

Bremer’s request came as tens of thousands of Shiites took to the streets Monday to support Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s unrelenting call for direct elections and rejection of Bremer’s plans in the second mass rally in four days, the BBC television reported.

Bremer, accompanied by a delegation from Iraq’s interim Governing Council, is expected to ask Annan to send a team to Iraq to convince Sistani to compromise on demands for direct elections ahead of the June 30 date for Iraqi sovereignty, diplomats told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

His bid followed Sunday’s deadly bombing in Baghdad. A pick-up truck crammed with half a ton of explosives and artillery shells exploded near the main entrance to the sprawling U.S.-led occupation, killing 25 people and wounding more than 130 others.

After talks with U.S. President George W. Bush Friday, January 16, Bremer said he was ready to make what he called refinements to his November plan , but he doubted direct elections could be held before the July deadline.

Under an agreement between Bremer and the U.S.-selected Iraqi council, a provisional Iraqi government is to be formed by June, named by a transitional assembly to be selected by the end of May and whose members in turn would be nominated through regional caucuses.

Urgent

The meeting, first proposed by Annan a month ago, has taken on new urgency after Sistani, who long steered clear of politics, charged that the U.S. power transfer plan was a trap for the Americans to control Iraq.

The scholar has threatened a general strike and mass demonstrations unless the occupation authorities bowed to his demands for direct elections.

Sistani has rejected the caucus system planned by the Governing Council and the occupation, which would lead to the creation of a transitional government but would not allow for polls until the end of 2005.

Diplomats said a U.N. fact-finding team could either convince Sistani that the elections are not feasible or find a compromise that would avoid a showdown between the U.S.-led occupation and the widely respected scholar, AFP said.

But experts believe that Sunday’s massive bombing that turned the gates of the occupation headquarters into an apocalyptic scene of corpses, fire and billowing smoke could very well deter the U.N. from rushing in and mending the growing rift between the Shiites and Americans.

Annan has already indicated he is unwilling to send his personnel back into Iraq unless he is satisfied that the security situation is improved and that the world body will be given a substantive role to play.

The world body left Iraq last year after the August 19 destruction of its offices by a truck bomb that killed envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.