They Didn't Want To Wait

TIME's Brian Bennett, Romesh Ratnesar and Vivienne Walt met last week with the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, minutes after members of Iraq's Governing Council announced that the U.S. wil

According to the timetable laid out in the plan, an Iraqi government will be in place by June 2004. Is the American occupation over at that point?

Yes. The deadlines are just an agreement between us and the Governing Council, but I think we all intend to stick to them. There will be a transitional legislature by the end of May. The assembly then will elect a transitional government, which is fully sovereign by the end of June. Once we cede sovereignty, as a matter of law, the occupation ends.

President Bush has said, "We'll stay until the job is done."...

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