BAGHDAD, Iraq — Shiite Muslim cleric Abdul Aziz Hakim used his maiden news conference Wednesday as Iraqi Governing Council president to push for direct elections to select a national assembly, despite deep U.S. doubts about the proposal.
"A provisional national assembly should be elected by the Iraqi people, and this assembly should choose the government," said Hakim, the first cleric to hold the rotating presidency of the U.S.-appointed governing council.
The council is in the midst of a heated debate over how to choose the assembly, which is to take office in June and help govern Iraq for the next couple of years while a constitution is written and elections for a permanent government are held.
The United States has proposed using provincial caucuses for selecting assembly members, but Shiite religious leaders, including Hakim, are pressing hard for direct elections because Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq’s population and are likely to dominate the body.
A number of council members, especially those who represent minority groups, believe that the country is not ready for elections because it lacks voter rolls and security.
In other developments Wednesday, Hakim announced that the Governing Council will move ahead with the establishment of a human rights court to try those accused of abuses under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Other Governing Council members said the court will try some of the most-wanted members of Hussein’s regime, including those pictured on the "deck of cards" who are being held by the United States, as well as other high-ranking Baath Party members in detention.
Hakim, 53, who for years collected data on human rights abuses in Iraq, spent the last 20 years in Iran. He is the brother of Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was assassinated in an August mosque bombing in city of Najaf.
In other developments, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said coalition forces in Baghdad detained a top aide to Muqtada Sadr, a firebrand Shiite cleric who has openly espoused anti-U.S. views. Amar Yasseri, who heads operations for Sadr in the capital’s Sadr City neighborhood, was "believed responsible" for an Oct. 9 ambush in the slum that left two U.S. soldiers dead.
Also Wednesday, 82rd Airborne Division troops in the town of Fallujah detained a former Iraqi general, Daham Mahmedi, the military said. He is suspected of directing anti-U.S. activities in Fallujah, the military said.
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