IRAQ: Security in Iraq may be too precarious to hold early elections, the country's interior minister said yesterday as the United Nations considered whether to send a team to see if a nationwide vote is possible.
Washington, which failed to win UN backing for the war in Iraq, now wants the world body to play a significant political role in the country.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to announce soon whether he will send a team to Iraq to explore the feasibility of early elections to replace a US plan to choose a government through regional caucuses.
UN security experts are already in Iraq assessing the situation, which remains fragile, as was highlighted by a series of attacks at the weekend and yesterday.
Rebels fired a rocket last night at the headquarters of the US-led coalition after gunmen killed seven Iraqi policemen in attacks west of Baghdad.
Strong explosions reverberated through the heart of the capital, followed by sirens and a recorded message warning those in the coalition headquarters compound known as the green zone to "take cover".
A coalition spokesman said at least one rocket, apparently fired from across the Tigris, exploded in a car park near the Republican Palace, used by administrator Paul Bremer and senior coalition staff, but caused no damage or casualties.
Meanwhile Japan has ordered the dispatch of an army contingent that will help rebuild Iraq, hours after the defence ministry said a Jordanian driver was killed when his truck carrying a mobile home for Japanese troops was attacked west of Baghdad.
The attack took place on Sunday, and officials in Tokyo said it did not appear to have been directed at Japan.
Under a US-backed plan to hand over sovereignty, regional caucuses would select a transitional assembly by May, and the assembly would choose an interim government to take over sovereignty on June 30th. Elections would follow in 2005.
But many Iraqis have backed a demand by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shi'ite cleric, for elections to be held before sovereignty is transferred.
Some Iraqi officials, however, say the country is not yet ready to hold elections, given the security situation.
"We ask for this matter to be postponed, even if it is for a short time, until all the political and security preparations can ensure that elections can run in a free and stable manner," Interior Minister Mr Nouri Badran, a secular Shi'ite, told a news conference when asked whether Iraq could hold early elections.
Washington hopes Iraqis will abide by a UN ruling on the matter. "We have asked the United Nations...for a second opinion on this issue of is it possible to get world standard elections within four, five or six months before June," said US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Mr Lorne Craner.
Diplomats at the United Nations said Mr Annan may not give details on the timing of the UN mission to Baghdad or who would lead it, but it was expected to go next month.
They said Mr Annan would probably link the departure to a UN security assessment, required since two suicide bomb attacks on the UN headquarters in Baghdad last year prompted the UN to withdraw all international staff.
In Rome, US Vice-President Dick Cheney defended the war on Iraq, despite mounting criticism over failure to find weapons of mass destruction. In a speech in the Italian senate, he made no mention of earlier US charges that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.