Bremer: Can't rush Iraq elections
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L. Paul Bremer
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S.-led coalition's chief civilian authority in Iraq said Tuesday that direct elections would be held next year -- after the coalition's scheduled handover of power to an Iraqi government.
L. Paul Bremer told CNN that the coalition and the Iraqi Governing Council simply do not have the time needed to create an election law, conduct a proper census, prepare a voter list and conduct a series of other steps that would lead to fair elections.
"These things cannot be done in an appropriate fashion between now and when the Iraqi people want their sovereignty back," he said on CNN, pointing out that two direct elections are scheduled for 2005 -- one to select delegates to a constitutional convention and another to elect the government that will take over for the transitional assembly.
A leading Shiite cleric rejected the plan for a transitional National Assembly -- chosen by caucus-selected delegates -- to assume power by June 30.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that U.S. officials were working to simplify the caucus process for the coming spring in order to make it more transparent and more democratic. Bremer did not directly address the report, but he did not rule out changes in the current plan.
"We're democrats to our very bones," Bremer said in a taped interview to be aired Tuesday night on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now." "We have been practicing democracy for 200 years. Elections are always the best way to select a representative government. The problem we have is time."
Bremer also said the coalition was not concerned with the idea of an Iraq government made up of a Shiite Muslim majority.
"We believe in majority rule and the majority will rule," he said. "The process we put into place will ensure participation by all the various sects and religions in the timeline we agreed on."
According to the agreement reached between the coalition and the Governing Council on November 15, the constitutional convention must be elected by March 15, 2005 -- the constitution itself must be approved by the Iraqi people in a referendum -- and the new assembly elected by the end of the year.
Sistani has also said that the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq could only be negotiated by a directly elected government -- leaving the status of coalition troops after June 30, when both the coalition and the Governing Council dissolve, a little questionable.
Bremer was unconcerned, saying that forces will have to remain "beyond the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people" to maintain stability, something the Iraqi people want.
"The polls do show the Iraqi people, 90 to 95 percent, are delighted with liberation," he said. "They don't like being occupied. It's not nice to be occupied, but they also don't want us to leave because they know they don't have control in their own country yet."
"I think there is dynamic tension there," he said. "We will work with the Iraqis. We have said we will stay until the job is done, until security and stability are in Iraq, and that is our intention."
Bremer also said that the United Nations has "an important role to play in Iraq," including assistance with the nuts and bolts of the country's transition into sovereignty.
His statement comes as the United States and the Iraqi Governing Council plan to sit down Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss the United Nations' future in the country.
"We think the U.N. has an important role to play in Iraq," Bremer said. "... We regret the fact that the U.N. pulled its people out of here after the attack on its mission in August."
Annan's special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others were killed in the attack.
"We think the United Nations has a role to play now in helping implement the agreement we made with Governing Council, bringing together a transitional assembly by the end of June, electing a constituent assembly next year and writing a constitution.
"There is a lot the U.N. can bring to this effort and we look forward to working with them on that."
