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Iraq assembly gets charter draft, Sunnis upset
By Alastair Macdonald
08/23/05 "Reuters"
-- -- Iraq's Shi'ite-led government ruled out major concessions on Tuesday over a draft constitution that parliament looks set to pass this week in the teeth of minority Sunni objections that it could ignite civil war.
"The draft that was submitted is approximately the draft that will be implemented," government spokesman Laith Kubba said after parliament took delivery of the text at a late-night sitting but gave tempers three days to cool before a vote.
The Shi'ite head of the parliamentary drafting committee again made clear he had little interest in reopening key clauses of dispute, notably on autonomous "federal" regions which Sunnis say discriminate against them and could break up the state.
Humam Hamoudi said the Sunni negotiators brought in from outside the Shi'ite- and Kurd-dominated parliament were not representative of their community and that it was better now to have the National Assembly submit the draft to a referendum.
Sunni leaders, who largely shunned a January election that gave rival communities control of parliament, said they were mobilizing support for a "no" vote in the October referendum.
U.S. diplomats, under pressure from Washington to keep Iraqi negotiators to a timetable laid down under American supervision last year, say they will go on working for a consensus that can draw the once-dominant Sunnis away from violent opposition.
But one participant in the talks said a comprehensive deal seemed unlikely unless Sunni delegates had a change of heart.
"The only possible change now is that the Sunnis become convinced on federalism," said Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a Shi'ite cleric on the constitutional drafting committee.
Shi'ites and Kurds said they might yet offer minor concessions, but would otherwise use their huge parliamentary majority to drive through the draft presented on Monday minutes before a midnight deadline.
SPECTRE OF CIVIL WAR
"If it passes, there will be an uprising in the streets," Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said after the brief sitting.
"We will campaign ... to tell both Sunnis and Shi'ites to reject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war," Soha Allawi, another Sunni Arab on the constitution-drafting committee, told Reuters.
Interim rules say the charter will fail if two thirds of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it. By some reckoning, that could happen in the three provinces around the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Ramadi, north and west of Baghdad.
Hundreds of people demonstrated against the present draft of the constitution in the town of Ad Dawr, close to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, in the heartland of Sunni Arab militancy.
With discontent spreading at the failure of the government to curb violence or improve living standards, Sunnis and rival Shi'ite parties see a chance to embarrass it at the polls.
Some Shi'ites, notably radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, also reject federalism. But government-run television showed wild rejoicing in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf after news of the ruling coalition's plans to force through its charter.
Secular Shi'ites, notably a party led by U.S.-backed former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, have also voiced disapproval of the government and raised doubts about the way the draft constitution is being forced through parliament.
The draft gave ground to some Sunni fears that Shi'ites and Kurds could hive off strong federal regions in the oil-rich north and south. But Sunnis stood by a demand that "federalism" be left out altogether.
The draft also made Islam "a main source" of law in what seemed a compromise between Islamist Shi'ites and secular Kurds.
The U.S. envoy in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he would go on working to foster consensus in Iraq and stressed the need to draw Sunnis into politics as a means of ending the violence that is keeping 140,000 American troops pinned down in the country.
Two more soldiers were killed north of Baghdad on Monday and a third died in a rocket attack in the capital.
President George W. Bush, campaigning at home to quell mounting disquiet over the costly occupation of Iraq, said it was a key front in the "war on terror" and he would not bring troops home prematurely: "We will finish the task," he said.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
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