“The main problem is technical ... and this problem will take time ... a year or 15 months,” Bremer (AFP)

DUBAI, February 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. civil administrator in Iraq said Saturday, February 21, that elections would be impossible to be held for at least one year, setting the stage for another clash with the Iraqis demanding a swift end to occupation of the oil-rich country.

“The main problem is technical ... and this problem will take time ... a year or 15 months,” Bremer told Al-Arabiya Satellite Channel in an interview.

“These technical problems will take time to fix - we estimate somewhere between a year to 15 months...There are real important technical problems why elections are not possible,” Bremer said in the interview to the Arabic language Channel.

He argued that Iraq has no election law, national commission, voters' lists or a credible, reliable census for almost 20 years.

The statements came two days after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that it was not feasible to hold elections before June 30, when the U.S. occupation forces should hand over power to a provisional Iraqi government.

But Annan told reporters that the June 30 date Washington had fixed for a transfer of sovereignty “must be respected”.

The statements would further infuriate ordinary Iraqis, seeking the situation back to normality after more than nine months of chaos and anarchy since the U.S.-British invasion began on March 20.

Bremer said Monday, February 16, he will not allow Islam to be the main source of law in Iraq, warning that he could veto the country's temporary constitution if it did not fit the “American vision“ of democracy.

Several hundred Shiite demonstrated in An-Najaf Friday to support calls for quick elections to end the country’s occupation, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Long Haul

Further to the Iraqis’ suspicions, American officials claimed  said that U.S. forces would stay in the country long after a sovereign government is restored this summer.

For planning purposes, the Army is assuming it will have to keep roughly 100,000 troops in Iraq for at least another two years, the Army chief of staff General Peter Schoomaker told Congress recently.

Defense Secretary’s chief spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters at the Pentagon that there is a “fairly confident belief” that most Iraqis accept the U.S. view that American troops will be needed over the long haul to ensure a stable transition to democracy.

The basis for a continued U.S. military presence under the authority of a transitional Iraqi government is “being developed”, Di Rita was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

“I think there's a fairly comfortable understanding that the coalition has a lot to offer with respect to continued security in Iraq,… and that people in Iraq understand that (and) want the coalition to continue to be involved in security in some way,” he added.

Rita was speaking as In several thousand people took to the streets demanding elections in An-Najaf.

Anthony Cordesman, a close observer of the Iraq situation as a strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that if political control was turned over on July 1 to an Iraqi body that is not elected, it likely would align itself with U.S. objectives and therefore welcome a continued U.S. military presence.

If the new Iraqi government decided it wanted American forces to leave, "We would certainly be obligated to leave, under international law," Cordesman was quoted by the Associated Press.

U.N. Guarantees

Ayatollah Sistani said U.S. administrators' "stalling" was the reason a vote by June 30 is not feasible. In any case, he said, preparations to carry out elections must begin "at the nearest possible opportunity."

He demanded "clear guarantees, such as a U.N. Security Council resolution, to reassure the Iraqi people that elections won't be blocked again for the same pretexts being used now."

Also, the body that takes power should have limited powers, preventing it from taking "important decisions that effect the country's future policies," he said.

The U.S. forces also dropped the regional caucuses that would scheduled to pick the provisional government,  with the alternative preferred by the United States is to expand the 25-member Governing Council and hand it power on June 30 until elections can be held, according to Washington officials.

Other Iraqi figures have made it clear they are against any delay in power transfer.

A representative of radical Shiite scholar Moqtada al-Sadr dismissed any postponement of elections.

“We demand elections and insist on this demand,” Sheikh Nasr al-Saedi said.

Attacks Continue

Attacks against U.S. troops, dying at a rate of more than one a day, continue unabated.

An Iraqi was killed and a U.S. soldier wounded Saturday morning when fighters ambushed three American civilian cars in Haswa, 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

The attackers opened fire from a car, shooting dead an Iraqi translator and wounding a U.S. soldier, a U.S. military official said.

American troops had been traveling in the unmarked Ford Explorer vehicles when the attack happened.