“In mid-May [16, 2003], the new American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, announced an indefinite postponement of the earlier plan to form a national assembly and interim government by the end of the month. The United States was supported in this decision by its partners, the British. ‘It’s quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body, because it will not have the strength or resources to carry those responsibilities out,’ said John Sawers, a British diplomat who had been sent to Baghdad to represent Prime Minister Tony Blair. ‘There was agreement that we should aim to have a national conference as soon as we could reasonably do so.’ ”
– Todd S. Purdum and The New York Times Staff, A Time of Our Choosing, Page 248