Top Cleric Pans U.S.-Iraq Plan

But American Official Says Most Interim Leaders Still Support It

(CBS/AP)  A prominent cleric joined Iraq's top Shiite Muslim religious leader in demanding that a proposed transitional legislature be elected directly, throwing another obstacle into the path of a U.S.-sponsored political plan for Iraq.

An official with the U.S.-led coalition, however, said a majority of Governing Council members remained committed to a Nov. 15 agreement setting a timetable to hand back sovereignty to Iraqis by July 1 and giving the country a new constitution and a democratically elected government 18 months later.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi, a respected Shiite cleric based in the holy city of Karbala, said Tuesday that the legislature should be elected and warned that ignoring popular participation in the political process would have grave consequences.

"The agreement was a deficient step on the road to the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis," al-Modaresi said of the Nov. 15 pact signed by L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and the Governing Council.

"I am concerned about increasing frustration among Iraqis and I am telling everyone that they are a peaceful people," he said. "But it will be a different story if they run out of patience. I fear sedition."

Meanwhile, U.S. troops in northern Iraq arrested at least 20 insurgents Tuesday in a raid that initial reports said was intended to capture Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a top ally of Saddam who is considered a key planner of recent attacks against coalition forces.

Guerrillas kept up attacks against American forces, with a U.S. soldier killed in a roadside explosion in Samarra, the scene of deadly weekend battles between Americans and Iraqis. His death brought to 441 the number of U.S. servicemen who have died in Iraq since the start of the war in March.

In other developments:

The Washington Post reports the U.S. has decided to form a paramilitary unit composed of members of the five largest political parties. The unit would hunt for insurgents and contain 750 to 850 fighters.

Workers who removed the first of four gigantic busts of Saddam Hussein that sat atop the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition authority said Wednesday that the work to dismantle the remaining three would last through most of December.

Relatives of U.S. troops visiting Iraq pressed their agenda to meet with leaders of the coalition authority, hoping to voice their opposition to the U.S.-led occupation. One mother held back tears while looking at U.S. soldiers guarding the entrance of the Habbaniyah military base in Baghdad. "They are so young. This is not for them," said Annabelle Valencia, whose daughter, 24, and son, 22, are both based in Iraq.

Several of America's allies face troubles at home after recent guerrilla attacks in Iraq. Opposition lawmakers in Hungary have taken the government to task for declaring it'll keep its 300-strong force in Iraq through the end of 2004. Japanese media reported yesterday that Japan will postpone sending a team of engineers and doctors to help with Iraq's reconstruction. But South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun pledged Wednesday to send troops to Iraq "without delay" after parliamentary approval.

The Bush administration, faced with mounting casualties among troops in Iraq as an election year approaches, sees Shiite participation in any political process as crucial, since Shiites make up at least 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.

Washington also sees a sovereign Iraqi government as a way to help defuse a growing insurgency based mostly among Iraq's Sunni Muslim community.

Under the Nov. 15 agreement, the legislature would be elected through caucuses in each of Iraq's 18 provinces and would convene by the end of May. It would elect a transitional government with full sovereign powers a month later, when the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq would formally end.

Elections for a constituent assembly would be held by March 15, 2005, to draft a constitution to be adopted in a referendum before the end of that year. Also before the end of 2005, Iraqis would go back to the polls to elect a government that would take over from the transitional administration.

The process first ran into trouble last week when objections to the plan by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, were made known through Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, who heads a key Shiite political organization, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and is the council's current president.

Al-Hakim said al-Sistani informed him of his "deep concern" about the plan during a meeting last week at the cleric's home in the holy city of Najaf. The cleric's main objection is that electing the legislature through caucuses lacks sufficient popular participation.

Al-Sistani has consistently refused to meet Bremer, most likely because such an encounter would likely tempt rival clerics to accuse him of "collaboration" with foreign occupiers. He has been communicating with the U.S.-led coalition through intermediaries.

Al-Modaresi doesn't have al-Sistani's clout among Shiites, but his remarks Tuesday should deepen the worries of the U.S.-led occupation authorities, who already had to ditch an earlier political blueprint for Iraq when al-Sistani insisted that only elected delegates can draft a new constitution.

According to the U.S. official, the majority of the 25-member council, appointed by the U.S.-led occupation authority in July, believed that electing the assembly through regional caucuses was acceptable given the difficulties involved in holding a credible election without a census, electoral rolls or the registration of eligible voters among the estimated 4 million Iraqis living abroad.

Only a small minority, led by al-Hakim, was adamant that Iraqis must chose members of the legislature in a general election, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The timeline and the process will remain," said the coalition official, who is closely involved in the political process. "The details can be worked out, but we are not going to have another shift."

©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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