Excerpts from previous political updates, by subject:

April 8, 2004

Developing plans for Iraq's transitional government

Although thousands of Shiites have marched through Baghdad demanding direct elections for a new Iraqi government, a U.N. team has backed the U.S. view that Iraq will not be ready for such elections by June 30. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Iraq during the first week of April to work with U.S. and Iraqi officials to develop new plans for a transitional government. Due to time constraints and a lack of better alternatives, it appears that the new government to be created on June 30 might be an expanded version of the existing Iraqi Governing Council. However, objections to this option are bound to arise because Council members were hand-picked by the United States and have little popular backing.