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Wrangling not yet over on Iraqi charter
4.10.2005
By Omar Fekeiki and Robin Wright
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Despite Imminent Vote,
U.S. Envoy Leading Bid for Major Changes to Win Over
Sunnis
BAGHDAD, Oct. 3 - Two weeks before Iraqis
vote on a new constitution, with millions of copies
already circulating for voters to study, U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is leading a drive for
major changes in the charter to try to win crucial
Sunni Arab support, according to Shiites, Sunnis and
Kurds involved in the last-ditch negotiations.
Khalilzad in recent days agreed to take six Sunni
demands to Shiite and Kurdish leaders for
intensified negotiations. The demands for changes
included some that Sunnis hope would keep political
power and natural resources under the control of
Iraq's traditionally strong central government,
Nasser Janabi, a lead Sunni negotiator, said Monday.
"The six demands are our last suggestions," Janabi
said. "We cannot give up any more rights. If they
agree on these demands, the marginalized group will
take another, positive position on the
constitution."
The top U.S. general in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey,
last week warned that if Sunni demands on the
charter were frozen out, the Sunni-led insurgency
could grow worse. Casey told reporters in Washington
that the draft constitution as written jeopardized
U.S. hopes for an early spring start to American
troop withdrawals.
Khalilzad went to the Kurdish north late last week
to urge charter changes on top Kurdish leaders,
negotiators said. But neither Shiite nor Kurdish
leaders have yet agreed to any of the changes, said
both Shiite negotiator Ali Debagh and Kurdish
negotiator Mahmoud Othman.
U.S. Embassy officials declined to comment on
negotiators' account of the last-minute mediating by
the American ambassador, who has pressed and cajoled
political leaders for compromise on the charter
since taking up his post this past summer.
Iraqis are due to vote on the new constitution Oct.
15. Promoters of the vote have prepared DVDs,
pamphlets and forums to outline the charter to the
public beforehand.
The draft constitution as written would allow Iraq's
newly empowered Shiites and Kurds the option of
transforming the nation into a loose federation,
including a separate Kurdish north and potentially a
separate Shiite south. Many Sunni Arabs, who had
wielded tight control from Baghdad since Iraq's
creation despite being a minority, said this would
mean the breakup of the country.
Iraqi leaders pronounced the draft charter complete
on Aug. 28, after three months of closed-door
dealmaking and at least three missed deadlines. But
Sunni negotiators condemned the draft, saying Kurds
and Shiites had opted to try to ram the document
through a national vote without their minority's
support.
Khalilzad kept up behind-the-scenes negotiations
even then to urge initially minor changes in hopes
of bringing Sunnis on board. U.N. officials had to
wait three more weeks before an official, final
version was ready for a $2 million print run to let
Iraqis see the draft charter before the vote. Iraqi
bloggers joked that the constitution should be
stored on a PowerPoint presentation to make changes
easier.
Casey, speaking last week at a Pentagon news
conference alongside Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, said his prediction in July that
substantial U.S. troop withdrawals could start in
early spring had been based on the assumption of
continued progress in security and stability in
Iraq.
"Now this constitution has come out, and it didn't
come out as the national compact that we thought it
was going to be," he said. "And there's division
there . . . and that caused the situation to change
a little bit," Casey said.
One of the Sunni demands for the charter would
restore a dropped phrase that Iraq "should not be
divided for any reason," Janabi said.
Two other demands stipulate that Iraq's oil and
other resources should be under central management,
and that a decision on Iraq's future form of
government should be made by a two-thirds majority
of the next parliament. Sunnis largely stayed home
during January elections of the current interim
parliament but are expected to turn out in force for
the next parliamentary elections in December.
A further Sunni demand would remove a phrase in the
draft equating the former Baath Party to a terrorist
group and would add a declaration that Iraq is "part
of the Arab and Islamic nations." The final demand
deals with conditions for citizenship.
Debagh said that Shiites would accept no changes on
federalism but that they were considering at least
four of the points.
"We have no objection to changes that help us to
achieve mutual understanding, but there is no way
that we would agree to change the basic principles
of the constitution," he said.
In Najaf, the Shiite holy city, an aide to Moqtada
Sadr said the influential Shiite cleric was
monitoring the last-minute negotiations. Mustafa
Yaqoubi said Sadr would wait until the week before
the vote to announce his opinion on the charter,
instructing his many followers how to vote.
Sadr is seen as sympathetic to the Sunni cause,
although his statements regarding federalism have
been guarded. His freeing of followers to vote as
they wished helped make Shiite religious parties the
biggest winners in the January vote.
Defeating the draft charter, under Iraq's interim
constitution, would require a "no" vote by
two-thirds majorities in at least three provinces.
Sunnis have rallied to get out the "no" vote in the
west and Baghdad, but the Shiite- and Kurdish-led
interim parliament raised the bar by changing the
requirement for defeat to a two-thirds "no" vote by
registered voters.
The run-up to the negotiations is playing out during
weeks of intensifying U.S. military action against
insurgents in the west and growing insurgent attacks
across the country.
Near the Syrian border, 1,000 U.S. forces kept up a
three-day-old offensive that has killed at least
three dozen suspected insurgents in Euphrates River
towns dominated by foreign fighters and Iraqi
insurgents, the U.S. military said.
The military on Monday reported the death of a U.S.
soldier hit by indirect fire -- meaning either
mortar rounds or rockets -- in the western city of
Ramadi.
Insurgent attacks Monday included a roadside bomb in
Baghdad that hit the convoy of Oil Minister Ibrahim
Bahr Uloum. Three of his bodyguards were killed,
authorities said.
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