Not to worry...whew
This must just be another case of Bush officials not communicating with each other. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Paul Bremer seemed to indicate, oddly enough, that there is no plan in place for the handover of Iraqi governance on June 30. On first hearing, it was, well, kind of scary:

"MR. RUSSERT: June 30: You're going to turn the keys over to the Iraqis. Who do you turn them over to?

AMB. BREMER: Well, that's a good question, and it's an important part of the ongoing crisis we have here now. We've always said that there are two dimensions to dealing with the problems of Iraq. One, of course, is the military dimension, which we're working on right now, but the other is to give a political perspective for the Iraqis to have more and more responsibility. We've been working on that for months. We are now working with the secretary-general of the U.N.'s special representative here, Mr. Brahimi, to figure out the best way to get a representative government in place before the end of June so it has a little practice and then turn over sovereignty to it on June 30. And I'm confident that working with him and with the Iraqi people, we, in fact, will get that. We'll get a representative government in place before June 30.

See? It kind of sounds like there's no plan, PLUS that he's setting up some poor UN guy to take the fall when we don't have a "representative government in place" that has, ahem, "a little practice." Even Washington Post columnist David Broder was a bit nervous about this answer. Later in the show, he piped up about it:

"That is not a good answer. And when we do not know--and not only don't we in the press know, not only does Tim Russert not know, but we've had the leading members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar and Senator Biden, say, 'Nobody in the administration is talking to them about what we think will happen or what we want to happen in Iraq after June 30th.'"

I thought I had heard Bush himself having something to say on this issue, though, and I found it. I'm happy to report the good news: the President himself does have a clear plan. He must just not have let everyone else in on it yet, and you can hardly blame him for not putting Russert on the need-to-know list. From a conversation with reporters, one week ago:

"I believe we can transfer authority by June 30th. We're working toward that day. We're, obviously, constantly in touch with Jerry Bremer on the transfer of sovereignty. The United Nations is over there now. The United Nations representative is there now to work on the -- on a -- on to whom we transfer sovereignty. I mean, in other words, it's one thing to decide to transfer. We're now in the process of deciding what the entity will look like to whom we will transfer sovereignty."

So breathe easy. Everything is under control. The process of deciding what the entity will look like to whom we will transfer sovereignty is under way.

My guess is the entity is just hiding in hopes that the US will stay there and continue the bang-up job of governance we've been doing. It is a pretty tough act to follow, no? I'm not sure I'd want that job either.

Maybe the President himself will clarify the very few remaining details in a press conference tomorrow night. That could be interesting.