Iraq: An Iraqi Shia Muslim leader told many thousands of followers during prayers yesterday that the US-backed Governing Council was illegitimate and called for an Islamic army and constitution in Iraq.
"We condemn the Governing Council headed by the US," Ayatollah Muqtada al-Sadr said in a sermon delivered at a mosque in southern Iraq, home to most of Iraq's Shia majority.
"An Islamic army must be created and volunteers for this great army must come forward," he said. Ayatollah Sadr called for a constitution that represents the Iraqi people.
Iraq's new 25-member Governing Council, roughly reflecting Iraq's religious and ethnic composition and giving Iraqis a greater say in the running of their country, held its first meeting last Sunday.
It was unveiled amid hopes by Washington that attacks on US troops would subside if Iraqis felt the US and British occupying powers were transferring authority to local leaders. But US officials retain the final word on policy.
Sadr is the son of Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated along with two of his sons in 1999 by suspected Iraqi intelligence agents.
His comments came as the US Deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, admitted the US was unprepared for the collapse of law and order in post-war Iraq.
Mr Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the war in Iraq, asserted to the Los Angeles Times that no amount of advance planning could have foreseen the collapse in law and order after the US and British military victory.
"The so-called forces of law and order just kind of collapsed. There is not a single plan that would have dealt with that," he said. "This is a country that was ruled by a gang of terrorist criminals and they're still around. They're threatening Iraqis and killing Americans."
Another US soldier was killed yesterday when his vehicle drove over a bomb in Falluja, scene of much anti-American resistance by pro-Saddam forces.
Mr Wolfowitz was interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by the Times into the apparent failure to plan sufficiently for postwar Iraq.
Mr Wolfowitz, who was in Baghdad yesterday, and other senior US officials interviewed, said the speed of the US military victory had created problems in itself, leaving large areas of Iraq under only nominal control by US and British forces.
"I would not for a moment go back and say 'Gee we should have gone slower so we could have had more forces built up behind us to control areas that we went past'."
The number of US soldiers killed in combat in Iraq has surpassed the toll for the 1991 Gulf War. The soldier killed yesterday is the 148th since the war was launched nearly four months ago.
A US military spokeswoman said the soldier's Humvee drove over an explosive device in the town 50 km west of Baghdad. There were 147 American fatalities in the 1991 war. - (Reuters)