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BAGHDAD, Iraq, Monday, Aug. 22 -Iraqi leaders
moved to the brink of agreement on a new
constitution on Sunday, solving several contentious
issues but still struggling with the potentially
explosive questions of Shiite autonomy and the role
of Islam in family disputes and the judiciary.
The Iraqis said they were hoping to finish the
constitution by the end of the day on Monday, a
deadline that they have already extended once. They
scheduled a meeting of the National Assembly for
Monday evening, when they hoped to present a
finished constitution for approval.
Negotiators said they had agreed on a formula to
share Iraq's oil wealth, which had been one of the
most difficult issues. The agreement was being
shepherded with the help of American officials, and
especially the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay
Khalilzad. After more than 12 hours of talks on
Sunday, an American official said a deal was almost
in hand.
"It looks like all the major issues are resolved,
and we hope tomorrow we will work out the remaining
details," said the American official, who, because
of the diplomatic delicacy, spoke on condition of
anonymity.
But a number of important obstacles remained, and
Iraqi leaders, including Laith Kubba, an aide to
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, raised the
possibility that they would have to extend the
deadline once again.
The most sensitive of unresolved issues revolved
around the role of Islam, which the constitution
writers have designated as "a main source of
legislation" in the new constitution.
Two critical questions have not yet been resolved:
whether to allow clerics to sit on the Supreme
Court, and how much authority clerics will have in
resolving family disputes like divorce and
inheritance. Maintaining secular authority over
family matters is especially important to secular
Iraqi women, who fear that Islamic judges will take
away the rights they now enjoy under Iraqi law.
A potentially more intractable problem in the long
run was the disaffection of Sunni leaders, who have
been largely excluded from the deliberations during
the past week. The constitution has been written
almost entirely by Shiite and Kurdish leaders, who
said they had decided to leave the Sunnis out
because they were being too inflexible.
The support of the Sunni leaders is not necessary to
complete the constitution. Because the Sunni
community largely boycotted the election in January,
it has only a handful of legislators in the
275-member National Assembly, which has authority to
approve the document.
On Sunday, Sunni leaders complained of being locked
out of the drafting process. They demanded that they
be included and, if they were not, that the
constitution be defeated.
"There is still no active and serious coordination
so far," 15 Sunni leaders said in a joint statement.
"This constitution needs to be written by consensus,
not simply a majority vote."
The agreement of the Sunni participants is viewed as
crucial in helping to placate the larger Sunni Arab
population, which formed the backbone of support for
Saddam Hussein's government and provides the bulk of
the manpower for the guerrilla insurgency. Sunni
Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said that after they had
agreed on a draft, they would show the constitution
to the Sunni leaders on Monday.
The Shiites and the Kurds said they would consider
Sunni views, but they said they would only bend so
far to accommodate them.
The Sunnis, for instance, have been adamant in their
opposition to granting autonomy to the
Shiite-majority areas. Leaders of the Shiites, who
make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population, are
pressing for the establishment of an autonomous
region in southern Iraq. The region would consist of
9 of Iraq's 18 provinces and contain its richest oil
fields.
Sunni leaders argue that granting autonomy to the
Shiites, along with the Kurds, who already have it,
could cripple the Iraqi state.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said they intended to
include language in the constitution that would
allow individual provinces to vote on autonomy. But
they said they were discussing a compromise that
could make the idea more palatable to the Sunnis.
Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister, said
Shiite and Kurdish leaders were discussing language
that would limit the size of autonomous regions to
three provinces each. "The idea is to satisfy the
Sunnis so they don't go berserk," Mr. Chalabi said
in an interview at his home in Baghdad. "They are
afraid of a super-Shia region."
But Mr. Chalabi, who is a Shiite, warned that the
Shiites and the Kurds would not compromise on their
desire for autonomous regions, even if the Sunnis
withdrew their support.
"How many votes have they got?" he said of the
Sunnis. "The majority of Iraqis want federalism."
Mr. Chalabi and other Iraqi leaders said they had
agreed to a formula to share Iraq's oil and gas
wealth, which provides the bulk of the government's
revenue. Under the agreement, money earned from oil
and gas deposits would be shared among the provinces
according to population.
The central government would control the oil and gas
extracted from existing fields, and regional
governments would be allowed to control fields that
are not currently being worked.
The control of oil is considered critical to the
future of the Iraqi state, in part because most of
the country's known deposits exist in southern Iraq,
where the Shiites predominate, and in northern Iraq,
the home of the Kurds. For the most part, Sunni
Arabs do not inhabit regions known to contain much
oil.
Iraqi leaders said they had yet to agree on details
for resolving the disputed status of the northern
city of Kirkuk. They have agreed in principle to
reverse Mr. Hussein's "Arabization" policy, which
involved the expulsion of tens of thousands of Kurds
and the resettlement of tens of thousands of Arabs.
Kurdish leaders are pushing for a timetable to carry
out that process, and for a referendum to determine
whether the city would be brought under the control
of the Kurdish regional government.
The most difficult issues still unresolved dealt
with the role of Islam. One was the question of
whether to allow clerics on the Supreme Court; under
one proposal being discussed, four of nine seats on
the Supreme Court would be reserved for clerics.
The other issue was the role of clerics in family
law. Mr. Chalabi said Iraqi leaders were weighing
two phrases. The first phrase, considered more
secular, says that "Iraqis of all faiths,
confessions and otherwise, are free to conduct
family issues according to their beliefs." Under
that phrase, the National Assembly would write
legislation to resolve conflicts that arise when a
husband and wife have different beliefs.
A second phrase says simply that "Iraqis will not be
compelled to act in family affairs in ways contrary
to their religious faiths or beliefs."
Mr. Chalabi said that whatever language was
ultimately accepted, Iraqis, at least theoretically,
would be free to opt for a resolution of family
disputes in civil courts, under a relatively liberal
civil law now on the books.
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