'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Sistani, Annan, the letter

Edward Wong of the NYT has a generally pretty thin piece in Sunday's paper, from Najaf, detailing how he failed to catch the ear of anyone particularly close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

It's heavy on the "color"-- donkey carts, etc., etc.-- and fairly light on the news content. The most interesting little tidbit came from near the end, where he wrote:

Two weeks ago, a major battle for [Sistani's] ear was joined, when it fell to Mr. Pachachi, of the Governing Council, to lead a delegation to discuss the issue of direct elections. Mr. Rubaie [also of the IGC], who accompanied the delegation, said the ayatollah sat on the floor of his home opposite them, wearing his customary black turban and black robes. Mr. Pachachi tried explaining that there was not enough time to organize direct elections by the June 30 deadline. He produced a letter from Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, saying as much.

"That didn't cut the ice with him," Mr. Rubaie said. "He had already been convinced that elections were possible."

That had come about, Mr. Rubaie said, because the ayatollah had absorbed the opinions of Iraqi census experts, the minister of trade and a senior United Nations envoy acting unofficially, all of whom had made it known to the cleric that direct elections were feasible.

I recall that in Juan's report, Sistani had wanted the Annan to send a real delegation to see him to talk politics at a high, empowered level, and that he had felt fairly badly disrespected by Annan having sent merely a letter.