US recalls Bremer to salvage self-rule plan
Iraq’s US administrator, Paul Bremer has been recalled from Baghdad for brainstorming consultations at the White House and the United Nations, in a scramble to salvage a timetable for Iraqi self-rule.
While the Bush administration said it intended to hold to its July 1 deadline for handing over control in Baghdad, large anti-American protests broke out in Basra. A leading Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, continued to press for direct, popular elections – rather than the US plan – as the way to create Iraq’s new government.
