Envoy proposes caretaker government through 2005
BAGHDAD -- The United Nations envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, laid out a blueprint for Iraq's transition to sovereignty yesterday, proposing a caretaker government to shepherd the country to free elections by the end of January 2005.
Under the proposal, the US-appointed Governing Council would be dissolved when the United States hands over power June 30, rather than expanded to form an assembly as called for in an earlier proposal US administrators promoted. Brahimi said the caretaker government would include ''respected" Iraqis who would serve as prime minister, president, and two vice presidents to run the country in the short term.
''With the security situation that . . . has been prevailing for the last few days, I don't think you will find anybody who would tell you that elections can be held in such an atmosphere," Brahimi said at a news conference, warning that security forces must establish order for a peaceful transition of power.
The initiative was announced as cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in the most significant move yet to calm tensions in Shi'ite Muslim areas under his militia's control, said he would set aside his demand to negotiate with the US-led coalition, and instead said he would follow the instructions of the Shi'ite clerical establishment.
Sadr's offer, announced through one of his top lieutenants at a press conference in Najaf yesterday , marked a turnaround for the cleric, who had previously refused to negotiate unless US-led forces released one of his deputies, under arrest for murder, and withdrew troops from Iraq's cities. About 2,500 American troops remained poised for battle outside the holy city of Najaf, where Sadr and his militia have been holed up for more than a week.
Meanwhile, negotiations between US officials and local leaders in Fallujah, the Sunni-dominated city where insurgents have been battling American troops, continued in Baghdad, and an agreement may be close that calls for US troops to pull back and for tribal elders to restrain guerrillas, a group of Iraqi politicians and clerics said. But Marines struck at suspected insurgents in the city last night, threatening an uneasy truce.
US forces have suspended offensive operations in the city since Friday, but respond when attacked. American troops fought guerrillas with Cobra helicopters and A-130 gunships, striking at areas Marines said were staging grounds for ambushes.
''I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long," Major General James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, told the Associated Press. ''It's hard to have a cease-fire when they maneuver against us, they fire at us."
US officials announced the deaths of four Marines yesterday, raising the total for April to at least 87, the most of any month since the US-led occupation began.
Brahimi criticized the US military operations in Fallujah, which according to wire service reports quoting hospital officials in the city have killed as many as 600 Iraqis. It's unclear how many of the dead were fighters or civilians.
''Collective punishment is certainly unacceptable and the siege of the city is absolutely unacceptable," Brahimi said.
In Baghdad, firefights flared on the road from the city to the airport, which has been out of US control, and kidnappers were still holding about 22 Westerners hostage. The Arabic language Al Jazeera TV network reported last night that kidnappers killed one Italian hostage and threatened to kill three others. The news was later confirmed by the Italian government. Russia offered to evacuate about 800 civilian contractors from Iraq.
But US officials are focused on the two flashpoints in Iraq: Fallujah, where hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of Americans have died in this month's fighting, and Najaf, the holy Shi'ite city in the south that is the last redoubt of the uprising spearheaded by Sadr.
Sadr's decision to obey the Shi'ite religious leadership means the 31-year-old cleric will yield to the wishes of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme religous authority among Iraq Shi'ites -- a moderate who, in sharp contrast to Sadr, has rejected armed uprising and embraced negotiations and elections as the proper route to Shi'ite power.
The announcement marks the most promising sign to date that the crisis begun April 4 when Sadr's Mahdi militia seized several cities and Baghdad neighborhoods and killed at least eight US soldiers could be resolved peacefully. Under pressure from a delegation of Shi'ite clerics and politicians, Sadr has kept his fighters relatively quiet in recent days, as 2,500 US troops were dispatched to the edge of Najaf.
US officials have stressed that they want to avoid a fight in Najaf. A gunbattle in the city, especially near the shrine of Imam Ali, the sect's founder, could spark a national outcry and rally moderate Shi'ites to Sadr's defense.
Until yesterday, Sadr had insisted he would not talk to mediators unless the US withdrew all its troops from Iraqi cities and released detainees. He himself is wanted on a murder warrant for allegedly orchestrating the killing of a rival cleric last April.
According to Sadr's spokesman, Qays al-Khazali, Sadr was responding to the wishes of senior clerics by dropping his demands.
''We want to free holy Najaf from the claws of the occupiers," Sadr told the German news agency DPA during an interview in the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. He repeated his willingness to die in the struggle, but added: ''The doors are open for all well-meaning people who are trying to end this artificially whipped-up crisis."
Iran sent its own delegation to Baghdad yesterday to mediate the Fallujah crisis.
Brahimi, former foreign minister of Algeria, has met with a wide spectrum of Iraqi, US, and other coalition officials to inject momentum into the political process leading to a sovereign Iraqi government on June 30. So far, no agreement has been reached on the structure of the caretaker government that will assume authority this summer and supervise elections by Jan. 31, 2005.
Under Brahimi's proposal, the United Nations would choose the top two interim leaders, with consultation from occupation authority and the Governing Council, the
''I am absolutely confident that most Iraqis want a simple solution for this interim period," Brahimi said.
Anne Barnard of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.
