Shouting "no to America!" tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims took to the streets to protest a U.S.-backed formula for choosing Iraq's new legislature.

The protest came Thursday as an aide to Iraq's foremost Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, warned that he might issue a fatwa, or religious edict, rejecting a U.S.-backed government if his demands for direct elections are ignored.

The turnout in Basra, estimated by British soldiers at up to 30,000, was the biggest protest organized by Shiite clerics against the power transfer plan.

The United States wants regional caucuses to choose a new parliament, which will then select an Iraqi administration. It says security is too poor and voter records too incomplete for fair elections.

The clerics want direct elections, fearing the caucuses may be rigged to keep Shiites out of power.

The Americans are also wary of elections because of who might win. With Iraq in turmoil, Islamic radicals or Saddam Hussein's Baath party might dominate a vote simply because they have the best organizations.

Al-Sistani and other clerics wield vast influence among Iraq's Shiites, believed to comprise about 60 percent of the country's 25 million people.

"The large crowd before you today are expressing their feeling that they don't want anything imposed on them," said cleric Ali al-Mussawi al-Safi, al-Sistani's representative in Basra. "We want to affirm our rights. We want elections in all political domains."

Protesters, virtually all of them male, chanted "yes, yes to elections! Yes, yes to al-Sistani!" Later, they sat on the pavement listening to robed and turbaned clerics rail against the U.S. plan.

U.S. officials say al-Sistani's demand is unreasonable. They maintain a credible vote could not be held on such short notice due to the country's precarious security situation and the lack of accurate voter rolls.

Instead, the Nov. 15 agreement provides for parliament members to be selected in 18 regional caucuses. The legislature would then choose a new, sovereign administration to take office by July 1.

Faced with al-Sistani's objections, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer left Baghdad for Washington on Thursday for consultations with U.S. President Bush and his senior national security advisers.

"If Bremer rejects the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, then he will issue a fatwa to deprive the elected council of its legitimacy," Mohammed Baqir al-Mehri, al-Sistani's representative in Kuwait, told Abu Dhabi television.

"Then the Iraqi people will not obey this council, which we call a council made of paper and a U.S.-elected council," he said.

Bremer will also attend a meeting in New York on Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which U.S. officials hope will help resolve the impasse with al-Sistani. Annan has written to the Governing Council saying that holding a credible election before June 30 may be impossible.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States would do everything it could to hold to the deadline. He also announced the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone, would set up an office in Washington to oversee Iraq's transition to self-government.

At a news conference Thursday in Baghdad, Adnan Pachachi, the current Iraqi Governing Council president, said he has spoken to al-Sistani and believes he can be convinced that elections cannot be held right away.

However, Pachachi said, "we agreed that there is room for improvement, there are many, many ideas to make it more transparent and inclusive ... whereby the Iraqi people, in a very obvious way, can manifest their desires."

If the deadlock cannot be overcome, however, sovereignty cannot be returned on schedule and the occupation would likely have to be extended for two years, he said. He did not explain his estimate; the process of setting up a government is supposed to last until the end of 2005.

Last June, al-Sistani issued a fatwa demanding that the framers of the Iraqi constitution be elected rather than appointed by the Americans or the Governing Council. That forced the Americans to speed the transfer of power to Iraqis even before completion of a new constitution.

Al-Sistani also said any agreement governing the presence of U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq beyond July 1, the designated day for the occupation's formal end, must be ratified by an elected legislature.

An interim constitution, being drafted by the Governing Council and due to come into effect by the end of February, must also be approved by an elected chamber, he said.

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