- BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -
A new U.S.-backed plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis will be changed
after objections from the country's most revered Shi'ite Muslim leader,
the head of Iraq's Governing Council said Thursday.
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- The U.S.-installed council's leader said the plan would
be modified to ensure a central role for Islam and to take account of the
cleric's wish that a planned transitional assembly be elected directly.
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- There was no immediate comment from Washington, which
said earlier it would send thousands more Marines to Iraq next year to
fight insurgents it blames for attacks on U.S.-led occupying forces.
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- "The agreement remains, but there's to be an appendix,
with other texts. The agreement is developing," Governing Council
President Jalal Talabani told reporters after meeting Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
in the holy city of Najaf.
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- Sistani's approval is seen as crucial to getting Iraq's
60 percent Shi'ite majority to back the political timetable. The elderly
cleric rarely makes public pronouncements on politics but most Iraqi Shi'ites
look to him for guidance.
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- Under the U.S.-backed plan, regional caucuses would select
an interim assembly by the end of May and this body would pick a transitional
government the following month. The government would take over sovereignty
from the U.S.-led administration, formally ending the occupation, although
U.S.-led foreign troops were expected to remain.
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- "(Sistani) requested that the allies make good on
the promises they made to Iraqis. He believes, correctly, that this is
democracy," Talabani said. "There's an appendix that says Islam
is the religion of the majority and it must be respected and considered
a main source for the constitution."
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- ITALIAN EMBASSY ATTACKED
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- While planning for the transition, the United States
said it would send thousands more Marines next year to fight insurgents
it blames for violence against the occupying forces.
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- Guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at Italy's
Baghdad embassy overnight.
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- No one was hurt in the attack, which came two weeks after
19 Italians died in a suicide blast in southern Iraq, in Italy's worst
military death toll since World War II.
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- Guerrillas have mounted persistent attacks on foreign
targets in Iraq in recent months, and have killed 184 U.S. soldiers since
Washington declared major combat over on May 1.
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- U.S. officials blame the attacks on diehard Saddam Hussein
supporters and foreign Muslim militants.
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- The U.S. Army said Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush,
an air defense officer during Saddam's rule, had died of natural causes
Thursday during questioning by American troops.
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- "Mowhoush said he didn't feel well and subsequently
lost consciousness. The soldier questioning him found no pulse, then...
called for medical authorities," a U.S. statement said.
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- "A surgeon responded within five minutes to continue
advanced cardiac life support techniques, but they were ineffective. According
to the on-site surgeon it appeared Mowhoush died of natural causes."
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- MARINE DEPLOYMENT
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- The Pentagon said it would send thousands more U.S. Marines
to Iraq to bolster the next wave of American troops being deployed to counter
insurgents.
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- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Marine
Corps to send three additional battalions, along with assorted support
units, as part of a troop rotation plan for early 2004.
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- The Pentagon said earlier this month it envisaged 105,000
U.S. troops in Iraq by next May, down from the current 130,000. But the
additional Marines will raise the total again.
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- Members of a Japanese military fact-finding mission to
southern Iraq returned home Thursday to report to the government on the
feasibility of sending troops to the area to help with humanitarian and
reconstruction work.
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- The team was sent to assess security after the suicide
bombing of the Italian base in Nassiriya. The Tokyo government is considering
nearby Samawa as a base for its troops and Japanese media said the mission
was likely to find there were no major problems with sending troops there.
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- Diplomats at the United Nations said it was unlikely
a new U.N. Security Council resolution sought by U.S.-appointed interim
Iraqi leaders would be put forward before March.
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- The United States and ally Britain had considered but
not yet drafted a resolution welcoming the U.S.-Iraqi timetable and diplomats
said Washington was in no mood to bargain with opponents of the war --
Russia, France and Germany.
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