NAJAF, Iraq - Iraq's top Shi'ite religious authority has criticized U.S. plans for the transfer of power to Iraqis as incomplete and paying too little heed to Islam, a leading Shi'ite politician said Wednesday.

Resistance from the cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, could lead to rejection by many of the Shi'ite Muslims who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population. But Sistani appeared to have stopped short of any outright dismissal of the program.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking hours after guerrillas fired rockets at the Baghdad coalition compound where he was staying, said the plans for transfer of power by July 2004 and polls by the end of 2005 would only improve security.

As U.S. forces keep up the search for deposed president Saddam Hussein, a military spokesman said they had detained a wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the second most-wanted man in Iraq, who has been accused of coordinating anti-U.S. attacks.

Major General Raymond Odierno, head of the 4th Infantry Division based in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, said he believed the fugitive dictator was still in Iraq, and that the capture of Ibrahim's relatives could help track down fugitives.

Washington has put a $10 million price on Ibrahim's head. A $25 million bounty has been offered for Saddam.

Odierno said U.S. troops would keep Saddam on the run.

"My guess is he probably has a plan to keep himself nice and cozy during winter, while the rest of his people suffer," he said. "But we're going to try to keep him running so he can't be comfortable and doesn't have enough kerosene... to keep warm. And I hope he's lost lots of weight."

Odierno said Saddam was "worried about being caught." "I know he's moving a lot, he's not staying in one place," he said.

SHI'ITE WARNING

In the holy city of Najaf, Abdul-Aziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said Sistani, widely revered as Iraq's most influential Shi'ite leader, believed the new U.S.-backed roadmap was flawed.

Hakim told a news conference he had met Sistani, who rarely makes public pronouncements on politics, to discuss the plan.

"He didn't find anything that assures Islamic identity," he said. "There should have been a stipulation which prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam in the new Iraq."

Hakim is a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and SCIRI has cooperated with the occupying powers in Iraq, drawing criticism from some Shi'ites. He said Sistani had several misgivings about the U.S. political timetable.

"He expressed concern about real gaps, which must be dealt with or the plan will lack the ability to meet the hopes of the Iraqi people. It diminishes the role of the Iraqi people in the process of transferring authority to Iraqis," Hakim said.

Straw acknowledged that security conditions remained difficult in Iraq, where insurgents have killed 184 U.S. soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1, according to the latest Pentagon toll.

"I'm absolutely sure that a more rapid political process will assist the security situation," he told a news conference.

ROCKET ATTACK

Straw said he had not been aware of the attack on the compound where he was staying, which set sirens wailing.

In October, guerrillas rocketed a strongly fortified hotel inside the compound where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. One U.S. soldier was killed.

A spokesman for the U.S. 1st Armored Division said at least two rockets had been fired in Tuesday's attack in Baghdad, but caused no casualties. Two Iraqi police were wounded in a separate rocket-propelled grenade attack near a petrol station.

Straw said he could give no date for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq pending negotiations with Iraqi authorities on the future status of foreign forces.

"We will stay as long as the Iraqi government and people want us to stay and there is a job for us to do," he said.

Straw, who arrived in Baghdad Tuesday night, also alluded to a danger that Iraq could disintegrate.

"The key question is to move power from where it is now, formally with the coalition, to the Iraqi people as quickly as possible to ensure that the integrity of Iraq remains," he said.

Additional reporting by Joseph Logan in Baghdad and Dean Yates in Tikrit

© Reuters Limited 2003

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