Bremer says Iraqis not ready for a quick turnover of power

The civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, says the current Iraqi Governing Council recognizes that it is not ready to assume governing powers in Iraq, despite calls from some for a quick turnover of power to the Iraqis.

Briefing reporters at the Pentagon September 26, Bremer, administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said the Governing Council members "are still working out their methods of operation, their staffing patterns, their decisionmaking. They are simply -- as they admitted in their press conference on Wednesday -- not ready to exercise sovereignty. And we understand that and they understand that."

He added that "On the other hand, the Iraqis are perfectly ready now to accept a lot of responsibility, and they're doing that. ... It's an exceptionally well-educated, well-qualified group of ministers. They are making policy in every ministry."

Bremer said the current coalition will work until the job is done. "My job is to work myself out of a job," he said. "I now exercise sovereignty in Iraq, and I would like to pass that on to a sovereign Iraqi government as soon as it can reasonably be done. ... We are not standing in the way of a rapid return to sovereignty of the Iraqi government, provided it is done in a reasonable and politically sensible way, which means getting a conference together, writing a constitution and holding elections."

Asked what would be the U.S. response if Iraq stipulated in its new constitution that it is an Islamic state, Bremer responded: "[T]he 1925 constitution of Iraq says, as subsequent constitutions have said, that Islam is the religion of the majority of Iraqis. That's a statement of fact. If the Iraqis were to say Islam is the official religion of the state, we could not very well object to that, provided it also went on to say, as the 1925 constitution did, that people have freedom of worship. There are established religions in many countries around the world, including Great Britain."

Asked what the United States might object to in any new Iraqi constitution, Bremer said "[T]here are certain issues on which we feel quite strongly. One of them is the protection of individual rights, which is really a -- of which a subset is freedom of religion. And we will be quite insistent that individual rights must be respected and must be established in the constitution. I'm not particularly worried about that. The Governing Council, in its political statement it issued after it took office, said it planned to respect individual rights, including women's rights and children's rights and human rights.

"So I think we will find a dialogue on this and other subjects once they pull the constitutional conference together. We'll have an opportunity to exchange views. But the constitution will be written by Iraqis. We will, of course, express views on some areas."