Iraqis clamor for elections; 11 die in Hillah blast

By: Hamoud Kufi

BAGHDAD, Iraq: From dusty marketplaces to packed mosques, the call for free and direct elections to choose Iraq's next government, as articulated by Ayatullah As-Sistani, is getting stronger and louder across the country.

“I was imprisoned many times for not praising Saddam in my sermons,” said Sheik Maad al-Waieli, a popular Shiite cleric in Samawah. “They tortured me to the point that I wanted to die.” But al-Waieli, while stressing that the demand for elections must be met, conceded it may be better to postpone them, perhaps by several months.

“We need time,” he said. “There is an educated class here, but they are not well educated politically.” He also said that although Iraq's next leader need not necessarily be a Shiite, the “customs and traditions” of the Shiites must be respected. “We are Muslims... The constitution should be Islamic.”

US administrator Bremer has hinted he would veto any attempt to make Islamic law the principal source of the Iraqi legal code under the interim constitution, which is supposed to take effect at the end of this month.

Iraq's small women's rights groups have expressed concern that women's legal guarantees as divorce, inheritance and child support could be at risk under a legal system based primarily on the tenets of Islam. Al-Waieli said such fears are unfounded. “Islam is open-minded,” he said. “We should respect the rights of others. We are not the Taliban.”

Separately, two trucks packed with explosives exploded Wednesday outside a Polish-run base south of Baghdad after coalition forces opened fire on the suicide bombers racing toward them. Eleven Iraqi civilians were died and at least 64 people were wounded, half of them coalition soldiers.

The Polish commander of the region, Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek, called the bombings near the base in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, a “well-coordinated attack.”

“The enemy's strategy is fairly clear,” coalition military commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters Wednesday in Tikrit. “They plan to isolate us from the Iraqi people.”

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