Word: bremer
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...Governing Council will be wound up at the end of May. A national assembly will be elected from Iraq's provinces--the details on how that will happen are still murky--and the assembly will form an executive council. At that time the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which Bremer heads, will dissolve, and sovereignty will be devolved to a provisional Iraqi government. A constitution will follow. At the same time the Administration is preparing to accelerate the transfer of political power to Iraqis, it is also looking for ways to augment Iraqi military capabilities. Sources tell TIME that the Administration...
...change in plan is more than a minor course correction. It is an admission by the Administration that the basis of its policies since the spring has crumbled. Bremer's initial plan for transferring power to Iraqis had seven points, which should have been a warning. Any seven-step program is almost by definition a leisurely one. The Administration hoped to take the process of nation building slowly, first building up the institutions of civil society--courts, a free press, a constitution, habits of consensus rather than confrontation. Only after the invisible infrastructure of a modern state had been established...
...Administration now knows that coalition forces alone cannot bring peace to Iraq. As the CIA report said--and the Pentagon acknowledges--Iraqis will always be better than the Americans at ferreting out intelligence about insurgents. That helps explain why many in Washington privately say they regret Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army on May 23. U.S. officials are urgently searching for potential leaders of a new Iraqi army. An Arab businessman in close touch with the U.S. government tells TIME that one commander who has attracted attention is Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, a Sunni Muslim...
...truth, Bremer's initial plan was always dicey. Here's why: Shi'ite Muslims make up a majority in Iraq (60%), although under Saddam--a Sunni--they never had the power their numbers warranted. The Governing Council too has a Shi'ite majority. In the summer Ayatullah Ali Hussein al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that any body drafting a constitution had to be elected, not appointed by the council. Al-Sistani, though Iranian by birth, is the most senior Shi'ite religious leader in Iraq. There was no chance that the council would openly oppose his will, and--because...
...Iraq for some time. A Pentagon official in Iraq says the plan is to eventually take all U.S. soldiers in Iraq off the street and into their bases, letting Iraqis conduct most routine patrols. But, he adds, "America will probably have bases here for 10 to 12 years." Bremer assumes that the provisional government will want U.S. forces to help stabilize the country after next summer, and Talabani concurs--up to a point. "If we need [U.S. troops], we shall ask them to stay," he told TIME last week. "If not, we will respectfully say, 'Bye-bye, dear friends...