World

Iraqi Cleric Attacks U.S. Plan

January 13, 2004 / 6:03 AM EST / CBS/AP

In a full-page advertisement on Monday, Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric reiterated his demand for the country's next legislature to be elected as he hardens his opposition to U.S. plans for regional caucuses.

Also Monday, a roadside bomb explosion in the Iraqi capital killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two, bringing the American death toll to 496 since the start of fighting in March.

Another roadside bomb exploded near an Army convoy in Ramadi, a town west of Baghdad, but the military said no U.S. casualties were reported. Residents said two Iraqis were killed when the Americans opened fire after the attack.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops killed seven Iraqis after foiling an armed gang's bid to steal oil from a pipeline near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.

A group of 40 men armed with AK-47 assault rifles in 10 to 15 vehicles were spotted at the pipeline by the troops who were led to the area by an Iraqi informant late Sunday, said an army spokesman, Master Sgt. Robert Cargie.

U.S. troops, armed with M-16 rifles and 125mm cannons mounted on Bradley fighting vehicles, shot at the alleged thieves, killing seven of them in a gunfight, he said. The remaining people escaped, he said.

Iraq's fuel lines have been targeted regularly by anti-U.S. insurgents and other thieves wanting to steal the vital reserves or sabotage the pipes since coalition forces invaded Iraq.

In other developments:

The Danish army said the results of a new series of tests to determine whether 36 shells buried in the southern Iraqi desert contain a liquid blister agent, could be expected by the end of the week. The shells, thought to be left over from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, were uncovered on Friday by Danish and Icelandic troops.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill claims that the Bush administration began laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq just days after taking office. The White House won't say when war planning began, but insists Saddam Hussein was always a threat.

U.S. soldiers uncovered a "large weapons cache" on Friday with the help of an Iraqi in Ramadi, the military said. Troops found dozens of rocket-propelled grenades and a handful of launchers, nearly 220 pounds of explosives, 16 remote controlled homemade bombs and two surface-to-air missiles.

A mosque official in the northern town of Baqouba alerted Iraqi police to a suspicious item that turned out to be a car bomb packed with 250 pounds of explosives. It was defused by U.S. troops, says CBS News Reporter Lisa Barron.

Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi says tens of thousands of former high ranking members of Saddam's Baath party are about to join the ranks of the unemployed. The U.S. dissolved and banned the party in May, a month after U.S. troops toppled the former regime. About 28,000 Baathists have already lost their jobs.

The top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said the United States is opposed to the maintenance of armed militias by Iraqi political parties and groups vying to fill the country's power vacuum will have to lay down arms in a future democracy. Some of the militias are run by Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, which had been outside Saddam's control for more than a decade. Others are from the Shiite population.

Ukrainian troops fired warning shots in the air to calm a group of 1,000 angry Iraqis in Kut, protesting against corrupt officials, lack of food and jobs, said Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki of the Polish army stationed in the area.

In a similar protest in Amarah on Sunday, waves of protesters rushed British troops guarding the city hall before being pushed back. On Saturday, clashes in Amarah killed six protesters and wounded at least 11.

Amarah, a Shiite dominated city, was calm Monday. Shiite cleric Watheq al-Batat said he delivered four demands from the protesters to the Coalition Provisional Authority: firing the governor, electing a new governor, an investigation into Saturday's deaths and jobs.

He said the CPA promised job opportunities in two weeks. If nothing happens, demonstrations will restart, he said.

The protests reflected popular frustration that could fuel opposition to U.S. plans for Iraqi sovereignty.

The ad in the Iraqi newspaper, al-Zaman, quoted Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani as telling a delegation of tribal leaders that power must rest with Iraqis and "not outsiders," an apparent reference to the occupation authorities.

Al-Sistani, whose views are highly influential among Iraq's Shiite majority, said in a statement Sunday the U.S. plan to have regional caucuses select members of a provisional national assembly would give birth to an illegitimate Iraqi government.

The ad appeared to have been placed by the tribal leaders.

Under the U.S. plan, a transitional Iraqi assembly — to be chosen by regional committees — would select an interim government ahead of full elections in 2005.

But al-Sistani, who met Sunday with officials from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, said the U.S. plan would "give rise to new problems and the political and security situation will deteriorate."

Al-Sistani also said only an elected legislature can ratify the presence of U.S.-led coalition troops beyond July 1, a designated date for the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis.

Drafting a new plan to accommodate al-Sistani's views would make Washington look like it is allowing its Iraq policies to be held hostage to the wishes of one man. It also would further anger Iraq's minority Sunnis, who had dominated politics in Iraq for decades.

The current plan calling for caucuses and a July 1 handover is itself a revision of an earlier U.S. timetable that gave the interim Governing Council power to set a constitutional convention in motion.

Under that earlier plan, power would be turned over to Iraqis only after the constitution was drafted and elections held.

The U.S. dropped that timetable in November, amid a mounting U.S. death toll, rising occupation costs and worries that the Governing Council was moving too slowly.