AP Reports: "An aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani told Abu Dhabi television on Thursday that al-Sistani might issue a religious edict, or fatwa, declaring the U.S. plan illegitimate if his demand for direct elections are ignored.
Ayatollah Sistani refuses to talk to Paul Bremer. He only meets Iraqis who bring messages from the coalition authorities. But he meets the UN.
(And so) the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, was called home from Baghdad to confer with Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, Secretary of State Colin Powell and probably Mr. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
On Monday, Bremer met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the U.S.-appointed Iraq governing council on the imperiled Iraqi self-rule plan. "
Update: Why Ayatollah Sistani rejects Bremer's election plans for Iraq.
Jonathan Steele of The Guardian reports:
"The UN security council resolution (the US) pushed through unanimously last October called on Iraq's governing council to draw up a timetable for drafting a constitution and holding elections. It also called for the UN 'to strengthen its vital role in Iraq'.Naomi Klein of the The Globe and Mail reports:
But the White House has a habit of ignoring the UN resolutions it sponsors. The October 2003 resolution was ignored. A month after it was passed, the US came up with a plan which made no mention of any role for the UN and cobbled together an extraordinary process of caucuses to pick a government.
The (Shiite) spiritual head, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has repeatedly denounced the plan. He wants direct elections. His legitimate fear is that the US wants to control the selection of a government because it thinks the wrong people will win, in particular the Shia.
Ayatollah Sistani refuses to drop his opposition, and people were out on the street in Basra last week to support his line. Worst of all for Washington, Sistani has made it clear that no government which is undemocratically appointed will have the right to ask American troops to stay.
At least in Iowa, the Democratic party caucuses involve elections. Not in the US plan for Iraq. The US is proposing that "notables" in each province attend these caucuses to appoint an assembly which would select a government. Not surprisingly, the Shia leadership smells a rat.
Washington's plans for handing power to an unelected group of Iraqis is being strongly challenged by Iraq's majority Shia community. The occupiers who invaded Iraq in the name (partly) of bringing democracy are being accused of flouting democracy themselves.
Washington's plan for a transfer of power is a facade. The real intent is to get Bush re-elected and continue the occupation by indirect means. The UN should have no part of it. "
" 'The people of Iraq are free,' declared U.S. President George W. Bush in Tuesday's State of the Union address. The day before, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to the streets of Baghdad shouting 'Yes, yes to elections. No, no to selection.' According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no difference between the White House's version of freedom, and the one being demanded on the street.
Mr. Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to appoint the members of 18 regional organizing committees. The committees will then select delegates to form 18 selection caucuses. These selected delegates will then further select representatives to a transitional national assembly. The assembly will have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers who will form the new government of Iraq. That, Bush said in his address, constitutes "a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty."
Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees.
Ayatollah al-Sistani's supporters want every Iraqi to have a vote, and for the people they elect to write the laws of the country -- your basic, imperfect, representative democracy.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush said, 'I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again.'
He is being proven right in Iraq every day -- and the rising voices are chanting, 'No, no U.S.A. Yes, yes elections.'" Read Here for more...
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