Deciding on Iraq's future

By Jonny Dymond BBC correspondent in Baghdad

Few people expected much more from a diplomat; but even by the standards of his profession, Lakhdar Brahimi was difficult to pin down.

Brahimi and his UN team have spent the last week in Iraq

Should elections be held before the 30 June deadline for the handover of power in Iraq, Mr Brahimi was asked?

That one, the answer to which everyone wanted to know, was dodged.

But there were enough clues to give everyone who follows the process a pretty good idea of which way the UN team was leaning.

"The timing," Mr Brahimi said, "should not be a prisoner to any deadline... We need to organise elections as early as possible but not as early as impossible."

Post-war Iraq's crawl towards sovereignty can be deeply baffling.

But at its heart there is a simple question.

When the coalition hands over power on 30 June - assuming it sticks to its timetable - to whom does it hand sovereignty?

Assembly

The coalition's plan was to have an assembly selected by groups of local notables from across the country.

From that assembly would be drawn the interim government of a new Iraq, which would thrash out a constitution and then elections would be held no later than the end of 2005.

March 2005: Constitutional Convention elected to draft new constitution Dec 2005: New constitution; elections and appointment of new government November agreement

Not terribly democratic, pointed out the many critics of the plan; but the coalition says that elections simply are not feasible given the time scale.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the majority Shia Muslim group's most senior spiritual leader, was having none of it.

He let it be known that direct elections were the only way forward.

So the UN was called in as a neutral arbiter, to assess whether direct elections were feasible.

Bombings

On the fourth day of their visit, a bomb killed 53 people in the town of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad. On the fifth day, a suicide bomber killed at least 46 people in Baghdad itself.

Many of the victims were queuing outside buildings.

Almost 100 people were killed in attacks during the UN visit

The similarity with what could happen outside polling stations in a national election is difficult to ignore.

It probably was not a deciding factor for the UN. But it would have made even the most fervent fan of early direct elections think twice.

The final decision as to what the UN recommends will be taken by Secretary General Kofi Annan.

It is not expected to be a long time coming.

New plan

But it seems pretty clear what his team on the ground has decided. Ahmed Fawzi, the team's spokesman, told BBC radio that the elections would take place "after the handover of power".

The question remains: to whom will the coalition hand over power?

Few aside from the coalition like the idea of an assembly selected by local worthies. Even members of the Iraqi Governing Assembly, which agreed to the formula last November, is now reported to be going cold on the plan.

Now there is talk of expanding the coalition-selected Iraqi Governing Council, and making that body the temporary repository of Iraqi sovereignty - something that would please few people other than the current members of the Council.

There is not a lot of time left if the coalition timetable is to be kept to; but it is getting more and more difficult to guess just what kind of government Iraq will get when the coalition hand power over.