WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- U.S.-Iraq Civilian Administrator Paul Bremer returned to Washington Friday to discuss how to meet a July 1 deadline for turning over Iraq to Iraqis.
Paul Bremer will meet with administration officials on the eve of talks Monday at the United Nations over Iraq's future.
After a year of dissent with the world body, Washington is now trying to build a partnership with the United Nations to help solve a growing dispute over how to select a new Iraqi government to replace the U.S. occupation, the Washington Post said.
Administration officials still have not settled on a strategy for overcoming the latest obstacle to their Iraq plan -- the growing insistence by Iraq's most popular religious leader an interim government be chosen through elections rather than through a system of caucuses as envisioned by the United States.
The United States is not even sure how well Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani understands the complicated U.S. plan to hold 18 regional caucuses to select a national assembly, which would pick a government to assume power when the occupation ends.
