Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric believes a new American plan to form a sovereign provisional government in Iraq does not give Iraqis a large enough role in shaping the transition and lacks safeguards for the country's "Islamic identity," a prominent Shiite political leader said Wednesday.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed "deep concern over real loopholes" in the plan "that must be dealt with, otherwise the process will be deficient and will not meet the expectations of the people of Iraq," Abdul Aziz Hakim, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said at a news conference in the holy city of Najaf. Officials with Hakim's political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said he recently met with Sistani.
Sistani's reported displeasure with the U.S. plan for the transfer of power in Iraq could complicate the Bush administration's efforts to create a transitional government that would assume sovereignty by next summer, allowing the United States to end its occupation of the country.
The grand ayatollah has a broad following among Iraq's Shiites, who account for about 60 percent of the population. His earlier demand that drafters of Iraq's constitution be chosen through a general election effectively forced the U.S. occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer, to rework his previous transition blueprint, which called for drafters to be selected by means other than a general election and for the document to be written before a formal end to the occupation.
Under the new plan -- crafted in part to appease Sistani -- Iraqis will be able to elect delegates to write a constitution. The document will be written after power is transferred to a provisional government.
Sistani's reported comments could influence ongoing discussions between Bremer and members of the Governing Council about the process of forming the transitional government. Some members of the U.S.-appointed council, including Hakim, want clear statements about the role of Islam in society to be written into a basic law that will govern the country until a constitution is written. Hakim also wants changes in the way the transitional government will be selected.
Bremer's plan calls for caucuses in the country's 18 provinces to choose representatives to serve on a transitional assembly, which would form a provisional government. Participants in the caucuses must be approved by 11 of 15 people on an organizing committee, which will be selected by the Governing Council and U.S.-appointed councils at the city and province levels.
Hakim and other Shiite leaders, who worry that the organizing committees may exclude religious figures, want assembly members to be directly elected. At the very least, they are demanding that the organizing committees be disbanded and any qualified candidate be allowed to participate in the caucuses.
One of Sistani's main objections, Hakim said, "is the absence of any role for the Iraqi people in the transfer of power to Iraqis." Although U.S. officials have argued that holding elections would be too disruptive, time-consuming and complicated in the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls, Hakim insisted elections for the transitional assembly would be possible in 80 percent of Iraq.
High-ranking Shiite clergy across southern Iraq have become more vocal in their demands for elections sooner rather than later as a way to enfranchise a majority community that had long been marginalized in Iraqi politics. Some Shiite leaders remain suspicious of U.S. intentions and express concern that the transition plan would keep power out of the hands of the influential religious leaders.
Hakim said Sistani supported an explicit articulation of the role of Islam in the interim government. Bremer's plan, which was agreed to by the Governing Council, said only that the basic law would respect "the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people with the guarantee of the right of other religions and sects."
Hakim said Sistani "didn't find anything that assures Islamic identity" in the agreement. "There should have been a stipulation that prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam in the new Iraq, in either the interim or permanent phase," Hakim said.
Shiite political leaders regard Sistani's reported displeasure as instrumental in persuading Bremer to support changes to his plan. "It's a trump card," one Shiite member of the Governing Council said. "For this process to work, for Shiites to support it, it needs to have Sistani's blessing."
Officials with the U.S.-led occupation authority said the plan was agreed to by the council and that the Bush administration has no intention of revising fundamental elements of the transition arrangement. "The process was agreed upon. It was signed by the Governing Council. As far as we're concerned, those events stand on their own," a senior U.S. official here said.
But American officials said they are willing to discuss the matter with council members, some of whom have complained that the agreement was rushed though by Bremer.
Daniel Senor, a spokesman for Bremer, said the occupation authority looks forward "to reaching consensus on these [issues] through dialogue."
The depth of Sistani's unhappiness with Bremer's plan is not clear. Sistani, who rarely makes public appearances, has not issued any written comments about it. In June, when he sought to influence the constitutional process, he issued a religious edict calling the earlier American plans "fundamentally unacceptable."
He has not answered written questions about the plan submitted to his office in Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad.
Because religious edicts are typically not revised or rescinded, Sistani could be choosing to mold a fluid process without issuing an unchangeable demand. His comments as relayed by Hakim did not suggest that he had rejected the plan outright.
"This is a negotiation," Hakim said. "We're looking for compromise."