U.N. Plan For Iraq Transition Released

The United States plan to create a provisional government through a complex system of 18 regional caucuses has collapsed. As the UN's man in Baghdad reports, the plan that did not gain support among Iraqis. The caucus system, Brahimi wrote, is 'not a viable option,' and U.S. officials 'themselves accept that it would be impractical to try and implement this system which is totally alien to Iraqis.'

"U.S. officials had hoped that Brahimi's report would propose an alternative plan. Instead, Brahimi outlined a 'range of options' he said his team had discussed with Iraqis while on a fact-finding mission to that country this month.

Those options include expanding the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and allowing it to take control temporarily; convening a national conference of tribal and religious leaders that would create a provisional government; or setting up a transitional government of technocrats -- not politicians -- that would have limited powers.

But Brahimi said that Iraqi leaders, working with U.S. officials and the United Nations, must develop a consensus on which course to pursue.

'It is ultimately up to the people of Iraq to take the decisions required on these issues and to then implement them,' Brahimi's report said. 'They are more than capable of doing so.' "