Iraq New Government
Iraq's opposition blasts U-S plans to delay national conference -------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Baghdad, Iraq-AP) -- Iraqi opposition leaders say they oppose U-S plans to delay a conference on rebuilding Iraq's government.
Opposition leaders say they're pushing ahead with those plans -- with the Americans or without them.
The conference was to bring together Iraqi leaders to draft a new constitution and elect an interim government to replace Saddam Hussein's regime.
But on Sunday, officials from a U-S-led coalition announced administrative changes that would delay the constitutional caucus.
That would leave Iraq under occupation rule indefinitely -- angering many former Iraqi opposition leaders.
Now the Iraqi Leadership Council says it will try to convene the meeting, originally scheduled to start this month. The Leadership Council is a group of Iraqi political leaders seen as the possible core of a new government.
A spokesman for the group says the conference would be an Iraqi-led effort. As he put it, "This is not an American issue."
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