TERRORISM: Top Shiite Cleric Demands Elections

In what can only cause problems for the Bush administration, a top Shiite Cleric named Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is demanding that members of an interim assembly should be chosen by direct elections instead of caucus-style elections the US administration proposed.

"But in a statement issued today, Ayatollah Sistani essentially left no room for compromise by saying that elections could be held "within the next months with an acceptable level of transparency and credibility."

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