Dodd calls for U.N. to broker Iraq process
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Sen. Christopher Dodd, center, talks with Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Sen. Edward Kennedy. Dodd says the U.N. should take the lead in how an Iraqi national assembly is chosen.
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CNN's Richard Roth on Kofi Annan's call for a strategy for Iraq.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The United Nations should take a lead role in resolving a disagreement over how an Iraqi national assembly should be chosen next year, a Democratic senator visiting the region said Tuesday.
The U.S.-backed coalition and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council agreed last month on a process that included regional caucuses to select that assembly, but Iraq's most senior Shia Muslim cleric objected, saying that a direct vote should choose the assembly.
"I think the U.N. can have a role in brokering that," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut. "It's time for the U.N. to come in and provide that particular function. Either caucus or direct election, choose one. But let's get the process going."
The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani met last week with members of the Governing Council to deliver his misgivings about the process -- and his belief that the new Iraqi constitution should be Islamic in nature.
Since that time, coalition officials have said that they intended to stick to the agreement they made with the Governing Council and that discussions about how to implement the plan were ongoing.
Dodd said the "credibility of the elections" and the resulting government is at stake, and "the critical question is whether the people in Iraq support whatever process is used."
"Ultimately it will succeed if the Iraqi people support it," the senator said. "If they don't support it, no matter how good intentioned, it will not succeed."
Dodd, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan before coming to Baghdad with Sen. Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey. The two were to travel Wednesday to Basra in southern Iraq.
