The US administrator in Iraq has said it will not be possible to hold elections for a year to 15 months, putting him at odds with the country's most powerful religious leader, who has insisted any delay must be brief.
Paul Bremer, speaking in an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television channel, said Iraq needed time to prepare for elections.
"These technical problems will take time to fix -- we estimate somewhere between a year to 15 months ... There are real important technical problems why elections are not possible," Bremer said in excerpts of the interview broadcast yesterday.
"Iraq has no election law, it has no national commission to even establish a national law governing political parties, it has no voters' lists, it has not had a credible, reliable census for almost 20 years," he said. "There are no constituent boundaries to decide where elections would take place."
The interview with Bremer, who appeared to be speaking to Al Arabiya on Friday, will be aired in a regular programme tomorrow, the channel said in a news bulletin.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed the US position that it would not be feasible to hold elections before the planned US handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.
Iraq's powerful Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, widely seen as holding the key to Iraq's political future, said in an interview published on Friday that any delay should be brief and any interim government should have limited authority.
Asked how long polls should be delayed, he told Germany's Der Spiegel: "It should not last long."
Sistani had demanded direct elections before June 30 but recently agreed with a UN envoy that polls required adequate preparations.
Iraq's majority Shiites had protested by the tens of thousands in support of the reclusive Sistani's call for early elections this year, and they could take to the streets again if he expresses even mild criticism of Bremer's remarks.
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