Glance of Iraqi Cleric Al-Sistani

At three key junctures, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani has stepped into Iraq's political process, each time forcing the U.S. coalition now running Iraq to revise or delay its plans.


Al-Sistani issued a fatwa (edict) in June saying the Iraqi constitution must be drafted by elected delegates. L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator thought that would take too long.

But Bremer later agreed to speed up the process. In November, the United States and members of the governing council agreed that sovereignty would be transferred by July 1. The plan called for provincial caucuses to select an interim legislature before June and a constitution by the end of 2005, drafted by a constituent assembly chosen in general elections.

But al-Sistani — backed by tens of thousands of peaceful protesters — continued to press for early national elections.

Although the United Nations persuaded him that elections could not be held before July 1, his objections prompted the United States to give up its caucus plan and speed up the election calendar.

Then, earlier this month, Al-Sistani's objections to an interim constitution delayed a signing ceremony for three days. He later allowed Shiites on the Governing Council to sign the document, but later issued a fatwa casting doubts on its legitimacy.   ¶ 1:34 AM

  Blix Likens Iraq War to Witch Hunt

BARCELONA, Spain - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday likened the runup to the war in Iraq to a witch hunt, and argued that the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction would dent the public's faith in the U.S. and British governments.


"The governments were like the witch hunters of past centuries. They were so convinced that there were witches in Iraq that every black cat became proof of it," Blix said in Barcelona where he was honored by the United Nations Association of Spain.

"The tendency was to view any evidence in a more serious light than was the reality. It's clear that the Sept. 11 attack on the United States drove the analysis," he added.

The White House dismissed the criticism.

"Maybe Mr. Blix felt we should trust in the good intentions of Saddam Hussein," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "In a post-Sept. 11 world, the president understood we could not afford to trust in the good intentions of a madman who continued to defy the international community."

Blix said that intelligence information from the United States and other countries was exaggerated, and that politicians should have asked more critical questions.

"They were mistaken in their views, but I don't think they acted in bad faith," Blix said, referring to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders who supported the war. "The consequences of that are political. Now people have less confidence in them."

Blix received the group's peace prize, recognizing his efforts in trying to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq conflict. The Swede led the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and pushed for prolonging the search before taking military action.   ¶ 12:37 AM

  15 Detained in Iraq Suicide Attacks

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police and U.S. troops detained 15 people, including several possible Iranians, in the devastating suicide attacks against Shiite pilgrims the day before, an official said Wednesday.


Authorities, meanwhile tried to sort out the number of dead and how militants staged Iraq's bloodiest attacks since the war ended.

Suicide bombers set off simultaneous attacks on Shiite Muslim shrines crowded with pilgrims Tuesday in Baghdad and Karbala, killing scores of people.

U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders named an al-Qaida-linked militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a "prime suspect" for the attacks, saying he seeks to spark a Sunni-Shiite civil war to wreck U.S. plans to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30.

But some Shiites lashed out at U.S. forces.

A senior coalition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 15 people were detained in Karbala after the blasts, nine of them in Iraqi custody. The others, being held by coalition forces, included four Farsi speakers thought to be Iranians, the official said.

An estimated 100,000 Iranians were believed to have come to Iraq for Ashoura, and many Iranians are present around the holy shrines throughout the year.

There were contradictory death tolls from Tuesday's bombings.

The American revised the number killed from 143 to 117, the coalition official said Wednesday. But Iraq's Health Ministry said 185 people were killed, and some unofficial Iraqi death totals were as high as 230. Estimates of the wounded ranged from 300 to more than 400.  ¶ 3:06 AM

  Deputy Police Chief Assassinated in Iraq

Gunmen assassinated the deputy police chief in the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday, and militants warned of further attacks on Iraqi security forces and Kurdish militiamen, accusing them of protecting "infidel" Americans.


In Baghdad, attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a major Shiite Muslim shrine overnight, officials at the shrine said. The RPG punched a hole in an outer wall of the Kazimiyah shrine in a northern neighborhood of the capital, but caused no injuries.

The attack on the shrine came on the fourth day of the Islamic month of Muharram, a sacred period when thousands of Iraqi Shiites and Iranian pilgrims have converged on Kazimiyah, where two Shiite saints are buried, and other Shiite shrines in cities of southern Iraq.

U.S. officials have said insurgents seek to fan tensions between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni minority into a civil war. At the same time, guerrillas have stepped up attacks on Iraqi police and security forces, which are due to take a front-line role against the insurgency one the Americans transfer power to the Iraqis on June 30.

Gunmen in a car opened fire on Mosul's deputy police chief Brigadier Hikmat Mohammed as he was headed to his office Wednesday morning, killing him, police Lt. Ziad Mahmoud said.

Hours earlier, a previously unknown militant group, the Mujahedeen Brigades in Iraq, distributed leaflets at police stations in the northern city of Kirkuk, threatening attacks on police and Kurdish militias for cooperating with Americans.

Police Col. Adel Ibrahim said he believed the group may have been behind the attack Monday in which a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car outside Kirkuk's Rahimawa police station, killing himself and eight policemen and wounding more than 50 other people.

"Anyone who supports and cooperated with the infidels will be under threat of death," the group said. It threatened attacks on police checkpoints and warned, "We know all these (security) forces' movements."

"This is the last word for you, our Muslim brothers: Don't be a shield for the infidel Americans and sacrifice yourself for a handful of dollars," the leaflet said.

Kirkuk police chief Sherko Skakir said passengers in a single car distributed the leaflets overnight, throwing them over the walls of about two thirds of the police compounds in the city, 180 miles north of Baghdad.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded Wednesday alongside a convoy of fuel tankers near Latafiyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, witnesses said. A Saudi fuel truck was damaged and the driver injured, the witnesses said.

Also Wednesday, leaflets were found pasted on a mosque in the central city of Fallujah warning police that those "collaborating with the Americans against the mujahedeen will be attacked."

In Mosul, gunmen killed a senior military official from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, Gen. Abd al-Illah Hussein Al-Annaz, late Tuesday. Al-Annaz's son was also wounded, Mosul police chief Gen. Mohammed Khairy said.

Oil-rich Kirkuk has seen increasing ethnic tensions, occasionally erupting into violence, as Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turkomans jostle for domination.

Kurds see the city as the heart of their Kurdistan homeland, and leaders are pressing for the city to eventually hold a referendum to determine if it will join a Kurdish federal region — a step opposed by many Arabs and Turkomans.

About 4,000 people demonstrated in Baghdad on Wednesday to demand for guarantees of Turkomen rights in the future Iraq as politicians struggle to work out an interim constitution that will address federalism and Kurdish demands.

In a related development, a Kurdish group, the Reform Movement of Kurdistan, announced it had gathered 1.7 million signatures on a petition demanding a referendum in the Kurdish areas on whether they should remain part of Iraq or gain independence.

One of the organizers, Halkaut Abdullah, said signatures were gathered in major cities including Kirkuk, Mosul and Khanaqin, which have large Kurdish populations but are located outside the Kurdish autonomous region.

"We expect the majority to support independence," Abdullah said. "This is their ambition, although ambitions aren't necessarily realistic."   ¶ 4:58 AM

  Annan: No Iraq poll before June 30

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said direct elections for a transitional legislature in Iraq cannot be held by the June 30 transfer of power, but that date for a return to sovereignty must still be "respected."


"As we move forward, we hope we will be able to work with the Iraqis and the coalition to find a mechanism for establishing a caretaker or an interim government until such time elections are organized," Annan said Thursday.

His statement came as Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said in Baghdad that changes and adjustments are possible in the structure of the political handover to Iraq this (northern hemisphere) summer, but stressed that the June 30 handover date remains.

"And hold it should. In the November 15th agreement, the Governing Council and coalition promised the Iraqi people sovereignty on a date certain and we will give it to them," Bremer said in a news conference.

The June 30 deadline was set in a handover plan developed by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council. The plan calls for a caucus-style selection of a transitional assembly, with direct elections delayed until 2005.

Annan made his comments at the United Nations after a meeting with what is called the Group of Friends of Iraq, countries concerned about the situation in Iraq.

The secretary-general said the 46 delegations in the room heard highlights of a report from the U.N. team led by envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, which looked into whether elections for a transitional legislature could be held before June 30.

"We've shared with them where we stand, what we hope to do next and explained to them the state of play," Annan said.

The report on direct elections will be completed Friday, will be sent to Annan in Japan Saturday for his approval, and is expected to be released Monday, he said.

Along with saying there cannot be direct elections by June 30 but that date must be respected, the report is expected to outline a timetable for when elections might be feasible and what steps are needed for fair elections.

Diplomats say it could take eight to 10 months to get all of the preparations and balloting could take place sometime early in 2005.

The United Nations plans to wait to be asked by the Iraqis to return and make an assessment on what kind of interim arrangement can be put in place.

Brahimi, who was at Annan's side, said the United Nations will help shore up the political process up to June 30 and after that date "when sovereignty will be restored to Iraq."

One of the ideas for a caretaker government would be to expand the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council and extend its authority past the June 30 deadline.

Brahimi just returned from the volatile land, where there have been a spate of large-scale, bloody insurgent attacks in recent days. The shaky security situation is expected to have an impact on how and when elections are staged.

Last week, two assaults targeted Iraqi police and army recruits in Baghdad and Iskandariyah, killing more than 100.

Another was a well-planned strike in Fallujah against the police station and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, killing 25 people, mostly police.

On Wednesday, suicide bombers killed eight people at a multinational base in Hilla, and coalition soldiers repulsed an attack on the Abu Ghraib prison near the Iraqi capital, killing one of the attackers and arresting 55 others, a military spokesman said.

In the latest violence Thursday, a roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi near Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad.

With the soldiers' deaths, 547 U.S. troops have been killed in the Iraq war, 379 from hostile fire.

Of those, 408 have died after U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.

The United Nations undertook its electoral study at the request of the CPA and the Governing Council, which were reacting to the nation's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who wanted direct elections instead of caucuses to pick the Iraqi leadership before June 30.

U.S. involvement will not end

Bremer said he would not give his opinions on particular alternatives to the November 15 plan until the United Nations announces its recommendations for a transition.

"There are dozens of ideas around and I think it's appropriate now to await the independent view" from the United Nations on whether elections can be held before the handover and if not, what the alternatives would be.

Among alternatives, he said, "are caucuses that cascade downwards, upward-cascading caucuses, various other kinds of selections, partial elections."

He added, "As I understand the process, the secretary-general intends to issue his views on this question in the next 24 hours and I would prefer to wait until I hear what he has to say.

"There are, as I have pointed out before, a number of ways in which a transitional government could be selected if it was not possible to hold elections. It is a very complicated task to do it if you don't do it with elections."

Bremer stressed that the June 30 deadline would not mean the end of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

One hundred thousand American troops would remain in that nation and the Coalition Provisional Authority would transfer to a massive embassy with thousands of government officials.  ¶ 12:15 AM

  Pope Greets Cheney With Message on Iraq.

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II, a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, greeted Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday with a message calling for international cooperation and peace.


"I encourage you and your fellow citizens to work at home and abroad for the growth of international cooperation. ... The American people have always cherished the fundamentals values of freedom, justice and equity," the pope told Cheney, an architect of the war.

The hand of the pontiff, who suffers from Parkinson's, trembled as he read the short greeting.

Cheney, who was seated on his right, presented the pope with a dove made of glass, which the pontiff stroked with his hand.

He gave Cheney a set of 20 silver medals with reproductions of masterpieces from the Vatican and presented Mrs. Cheney and daughter Liz silver rosaries and medals of the Pontificate.

A red carpet leading to the Apolostic Palace where the meeting occurred in the Papal Library had been rolled out before Cheney's arrival and a picket of Swiss guards clad in colorful uniforms greeted the U.S. delegation.

The meeting came at a time when the Vatican has put aside its opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq and is seeking greater involvement by the international community in rebuilding the country.

Although an opponent of the war, John Paul told diplomats two weeks ago that "what is important today is that the international community help the Iraqis."

After a private 15-minute session with the 83-year-old pontiff, Cheney was holding talks with the Vatican's No. 2 official, Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

It was the highest-level Vatican-U.S. meeting since the Iraqi war began. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited in June, talks that were already taken as a sign that Washington's relationship with the Vatican was not damaged by its disagreement on the war.

The pope has been calling for renewed respect for international law — the Vatican was particularly irritated that the war in Iraq was launched without U.N. authorization. But John Paul has also been referring to threats posed by international terrorism.

And while his recent speech to the diplomats repeated his view that "war does not resolve conflicts between peoples," it also acknowledged that the Iraqis were rid of a "regime that oppressed them."

The U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, James Nicholson, called the pope's remarks on Iraq "very forward looking."

The Vatican values its relationship with the United States — formal diplomatic ties were only established 20 years ago — counting on Washington to be a major force in promoting democracy, human rights and religious freedom around the world.

It has clearly been seeking to tone down rhetoric that can be taken as European anti-Americanism.

The Vatican moved unusually quickly last month after a cardinal rebuked the United States for treating Saddam Hussein "like a cow" by showing film of the former dictator having his teeth checked by a U.S. medic after his capture. A senior Vatican official stressed that the cardinal was expressing his personal opinion and not necessarily the view of the pope.

Since coming to Europe, Cheney has emphasized the need for democracies to work together but that they should not fear using force if diplomacy cannot deter terrorism.

The views of the Vatican and the Bush administration are close on other issues.

President Bush signed a bill, now blocked in the courts, that would ban a late-term procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. The Vatican assailed Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, for what it called his "shameful" veto of similar legislation.

The Vatican has also mounted a campaign to bar same-sex couples from receiving legal recognition. Bush opposes gay marriage and would support a constitutional amendment against it if the courts insist in its favor.   ¶ 3:18 AM

  UN to send Iraq election assessment team.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says he is willing to send a mission to Iraq to assess whether elections can be held by the middle of the year.


But a team would only be sent after an evaluation of security risks, said Annan in a statement released during a visit to Paris on Tuesday.

Such precautions are required by the United Nations due to an attack on its headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August which killed 22 people. The world body withdrew its international staff from Iraq in October.

Time is short for setting up elections, which Shia leaders are demanding. However, Sunni and Kurdish leaders oppose elections now, saying they cannot take place under the occupation.

Decisions are needed by late February for a provisional national assembly and government to be chosen in time for a 30 June transfer of political power to Iraqis.  ¶ 3:16 AM

  Iraqi Cleric Shows Political Clout.

WASHINGTON - Many Americans tend to be wary about aging Shiite Muslim clerics who dabble in politics. They recall how Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini transformed Iran into a rabidly anti-American state and changed the region's political map as well.

Now, 25 years later, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, is showing the same Khomeini-like ability to mobilize followers by the thousands into the streets, often with a strong anti-U.S. undercurrent.

But Bush administration officials and outside experts reject the notion that Sistani has his eye on converting Iraq into an Iranian-style, Islamic state.

One official noted that Khomeini embraced a Shiite doctrine that holds the religious and the political must be intertwined, while Sistani believes the two can be separated.

James Dobbins, a former State Department official now with the Rand research group, agreed and said there are other reasons why the Iran model doesn't apply to Iraq.

"Iran had revolution. In Iraq you didn't," Dobbins said. "Also, the existence of the Iranian model is a factor militating against a repetition in Iraq. Iraq realizes Iranian model hasn't worked."

David Mack, a vice president at the Middle East Institute who served two stints as a U.S. diplomat in Iraq, is not surprised that a cleric has emerged as Iraq's most powerful political figure.

Under Saddam Hussein, he said, "civil society in Iraq was squashed. There were no political parties except for the Baathists. The only political action was underground, including the mosque ... Iraqis transferred their political loyalty to religious leaders."

Dobbins put it another way: "Religious leaders are the only leaders in Iraq who have not been assassinated. The Iraqis naturally are rallying to the people they know."

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it came as no surprise that Sistani and a handful of religious colleagues have filled the leadership void in Iraq. He noted that the United States was in no position to cultivate them because this country was frozen out of Iraq for 13 years before the war last spring.

That means virtually all U.S. political contacts with Iraqis were limited to exiles, such as Ahmed Chalabi, a Pentagon favorite who is now a member of the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council.

Sistani first showed his clout last fall by demanding that the new Iraqi constitution be drafted by elected representatives. He sensed that the original U.S.-backed formula lacked a mechanism for grass-roots involvement.

Sistani won that battle and now is insisting that an interim Iraqi government, due to take office by July 1, be chosen by direct election rather than by a U.S.-proposed caucus system. As an administration official put it, Sistani seems to think that a caucus arrangement would be a "smoky backroom process" that Washington can manipulate.

The administration knows it cannot bend too far in Sistani's direction lest Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis lose faith in the transition process. Nevertheless, they have indicated they are willing to make some concessions.

U.S. officials see the United Nations as their best hope for a compromise solution. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Tblisi, Georgia, said Saturday he has been in touch with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan almost every day recently and also met with Annan's special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, on Thursday.

Powell said he expects Annan to make a decision in coming days on a possible U.N. role in trying to mediate an agreement on a July 1 transition to Iraqi sovereignty that all factions in Iraq hopefully can accept.   ¶ 2:16 AM

  Iraqi Women Deal With Mixed Legacy.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With the backing of the U.S.-led coalition, Nidal Jreo was appointed in July as the first woman judge in the conservative Shiite Muslim city Najaf. Six months later, she has yet to hear her first case.

As she was about to take her oath of office, male lawyers barged into the ceremony, protesting that women had no business serving as judges. The ceremony was suspended, and her appointment remains on hold.

Many women professionals in Iraq fear that the gains they made during the early years of Saddam Hussein's Baathist secular rule — in education, the work place and marital status — are at risk from rising Islamic conservatism.

"If we don't reaffirm our right now, we won't be able to do it later," said gynecologist Lina Abood, 28, whose father was an opposition activist against Saddam.

Despite living in a dictatorship, women in Saddam's Iraq had more rights than many in the Middle East. They could vote, attend school, hold public office and own property. The regime guaranteed a woman the right to prevent her husband from taking a second wife — permitted under Islam.

However, with the collapse of Saddam's nominally secular regime the influence of Islamic traditionalists has grown, especially in the majority Shiite community but also among the minority Sunnis.

Secular figures such as Ahmad Chalabi, a Westernized Shiite backed by the Pentagon, are widely perceived as losing ground to religious leaders such as Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. Many clerics have close ties to Iran where they spent years in exile under Saddam.

In some southern cities as well as Shiite enclaves in Baghdad, young male vigilantes — organized by mullahs roam the streets enforcing female dress codes.

Not all Iraqi women share the concern. Traditional views run strong, even among educated women.

"It is the right of every Iraqi man and woman to have their religion dictate their personal affairs," said Jinan al-Obeidi, a Shiite municipal councilwoman in Najaf who opposed Jreo's appointment to the bench. "It is time for religion to be given the chance to prove its ability to give women their rights."

Ashwaq Sami, a 29-year-old Sunni housewife in Baghdad, wears a veil but says that shouldn't stereotype her as oppressed or backward. She worries that a U.S.-style women's rights would threaten Iraqi culture.

"I don't want Iraq to be like America," she said. "... All I care about is that whoever rules us is one of us, who understands our culture and our sufferings. Not someone who was in exile living the high life, and then returns to tell us what to do."

The American-led coalition has sought to raise women's consciousness, sponsoring empowerment programs to advise women on setting up small businesses and organizing discussion groups on womens' issues throughout the country.

However, many women complain that the coalition has failed to promote womens' rights as aggressively as its promises would suggest, and that whatever gains they have made will diminish after the U.S.-led coalition transfers sovereignty to a new Iraqi government by July 1.

Only three women were appointed by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer to the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, whose membership was determined by ethnicity or religious affiliation rather than gender.

No women were named to the committee drafting Iraq's interim constitution. Only one woman — Public Works Minister Nasreen Berwari — serves in the 25-member interim Cabinet.

Jreo, a Shiite who has practiced law for 15 of her 45 years, said her experience in Najaf is worrisome. Under Saddam, she said, "no one would have dared" to stop an appointee from assuming office.

She said coalition officials told her they would not override objections to her appointment "to protect me from the recklessness of others."

Many professional women viewed with alarm a decision by the Iraqi Governing Council in December to abolish the law regulating marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance and allow each group to apply its own religious tradition.

The decision, which was strongly opposed even within the Governing Council, has not been approved by Bremer, who wields a veto.

In December, about a dozen women wrote to Bremer saying the coalition "created these male-dominated councils" and is obligated to "redress this discrimination, and correct the failed power structure."

Coalition and Governing Council officials then had several meetings with women's groups. An advisory committee of Iraqi women was formed to deal with gender issues.

Gynecologist Abood said she will campaign for a quota system to guarantee positions for women in the legislature and government.   ¶ 1:46 AM