Reports: Iraqi cleric agrees to vote delay
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Iraqi Shiite Muslims carry portraits of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during a rally in Najaf earlier this month.
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CNN's Mike Boettcher reports on how wartime intelligence in Iraq can go awry.
U.N. report suggests Iraq won't be ready for elections until after U.S. handover.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meets Iraqi security forces.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq indicated Thursday that he agrees with the United Nations that direct elections for an Iraqi legislature cannot be held by June 30, according to local newspapers and political officials.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an influential figure among the powerful Shiite Muslim community, reportedly said he agreed to a longer delay before elections can be held, but said power must be handed back to an elected government as soon as possible.
Sistani was quoted in a Kurdish newspaper this week as saying "If elections were not possible before the end of June, stress should be put on the importance of speeding up preparations for elections to be held at the nearest possible time."
"What is needed is clear guarantees, including a Security Council resolution reassuring the Iraqi people that elections will no longer be hindered once again for pretexts similar to those already used," Sistani was quoted as saying.
Sistani is one of Iraq's most powerful proponents of using direct elections to choose a national assembly. He recently derailed a key element in the U.S. handover plan that called for the assembly to be chosen by caucuses instead of direct elections.
While Sistani previously insisted that direct elections could be held in the next few months, a U.N. team studying elections this month at the behest of the coalition concluded that a fair balloting system could be established only as early as the end of 2004.
In the absence of elections or caucuses, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council are discussing how to establish an interim government. One idea is to expand the nation's 25-member Governing Council and extend its authority past June 30.
Sistani said in the Kurdish newspaper interview that it is important that the powers of this caretaker government not be permitted to make important decisions regarding the country's future, but instead leave such decisions to the government resulting from a directly elected assembly.
One of the key issues in developing a fair electoral system is security. Anti-U.S. insurgents launch attacks on coalition and Iraqi targets nearly every day. In the latest strike, suspected guerrillas in Baqubah on Thursday threw homemade explosives at an Iraqi police ambulance, killing an officer.
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition Joint Task Force commander, told reporters that the coalition and Iraqi forces remain "committed to establishing and maintaining a safe and secure environment for the people of Iraq."
Sanchez also said that an Army helicopter crash that killed two soldiers Wednesday in western Iraq was an accident and not the result of an attack.
The copter was an OH-58 Kiowa, a reconnaissance craft that crashed into the Euphrates River near Hadithah in the 82nd Airborne Division's area of operations, the Army said.
Search for missing Navy pilot continues
A top U.S. military official in Iraq on Thursday said the hunt continues for Navy pilot Scott Speicher, shot down the first night of the Persian Gulf War 13 years ago.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said the Iraqi Survey Group, the agency looking for weapons of mass destruction, is also required to look for the missing airman. Sanchez said the group "continues to work" on the Speicher case, responding to "every opportunity" and "every clue" that could move the case along.
Last month, U.S. military officials expressed hope that a Bedouin tribesman would be able to provide details about intelligence gathered since Speicher's F/A-18 was shot down January 17, 1991. There have been indications that a Bedouin might have recovered and buried the body of an American, and has a pistol that might have belonged to Speicher.
The sources emphasized this information has been circulating for several years but they have not been able to get into the region to look for the man until now.
