"I'm not going to stick myself with any kind of media deadline," said Bremer

BAGHDAD, May 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The head of the U.S.-led administration in Iraq, Paul Bremer, on Wednesday, May 22, put off until at least July a planned meeting of Iraqi politicians to chart out the country's political future.

"I don't think it's going to be in June…We are talking now like some time in July," Bremer said in a fresh shifting of the target date for the promised national conference that had originally been due by the end of the month, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The American administrator of Iraq said he expected the meeting to go ahead in the middle of July, but added: "I'm not going to stick myself with any kind of media deadline."

Bremer insisted he remained in contact with Iraqi politicians, who have voiced growing frustration with the ever-lengthening timescale for the U.S.-led occupation to retain the reins of power.

"We are continuing our active dialogue with Iraqi leaders, I am meeting with them every day," he said.

But Bremer was dismissive of the seven-member leadership council of former exiles established under his predecessor Jay Garner, which he met for the first time last week.

"The group we saw on Friday is not representative of the Iraqi people. We are going to broaden our reach with the partners we are talking to," he asserted.

"We want a government representative of the Iraqi people. That's the process we are in now. We are moving as quickly as we can."

Bremer's comments came as he visited a former interrogation centre of toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's feared secret police which is being put back into use in a bid to tackle the post-war lawlessness that is the principal complaint of ordinary Baghdadis.

Al-Karkh facility is one of 10 former prisons around the capital that are being renovated to accommodate the hundreds of looters and other suspects being picked up by U.S. forces.

Iraqi officers mobbed their new commander, Colonel Jamal al-Maezidi, demanding to be paid their salaries for April and May and be given weapons to protect themselves against the heavily-armed thugs running amok across the city.

U.S. Army Sergeant Charles Guyette, who oversaw the renovation of al-Karkh, said the prison will be run by Iraqi police, but under U.S. oversight "until they learn the new system."

‘Sovereignty Vacuum’

The policy shift has sparked an angry reaction from the former Iraqi exiles, who accuse the U.S.-led troops of creating a "sovereignty vacuum."

The Iraqi National Congress, which holds a seat on the council, argued "it's not up to the Americans to delay this government. This is a sovereign issue.

"We are allies of the United States but we do not take orders from the United States," its spokesman, Entifadh Qanbar, told reporters Tuesday, May 20.

The top British official in Baghdad, John Sawers, said Tuesday Washington and London do not intend to hand power to an Iraqi government until elections have been held, which he expected to take between one and two years.

The United States and Britain decided on Friday, May 16, to put off the formation of an interim Iraqi government.

Bremer and Sawers told leaders of the Iraqi opposition parties and exiles that they ‘prefer’ to remain in Iraq for an indefinite period of time.