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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament received a
draft of the country's constitution less than five
minutes before a midnight deadline on Monday, but
there was no vote on the highly contested document.
Parliamentary speaker Hajim al-Hassani told members
a text of the document had been received but said
the final wording would have to be worked out within
the coming three days.
The draft of the constitution was due to be
presented by August 15, but a week ago parliament
voted to extend the deadline by one week. The
speaker said he expected remaining differences to be
ironed out in the coming days.
Iraqi leaders reach agreement on new
constitution, By Dexter Filkins, NY Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 22 - Less than an hour
before the deadline for finishing a new
constitution, Iraqi leaders said tonight they had
reached agreement on the document and were
presenting it to Parliament.
"The constitution is finished," said the Deputy
Speaker for the National Assembly, Hussein
Shahrastani.
The announcement of the agreement narrowly beat the
midnight deadline that would have brought about the
dissolution of the National Assembly. The leaders
submitted the document, but said they would need
another three days to work out details.
A succession of senior Iraqi leaders arrived at the
convention center for the presentation of the
constitution, including Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the
prime minister, Massoud Barzani, the leader of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Ayad Allawi, the
former prime minister. The American ambassador to
Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was also in attendance.
Asked whether the draft would be approved, Mr.
Jaafari said "God willing."
Negotiators working toward the final draft were
being held up by four issues as they approached the
deadline, which had already been extended once.
Sunnis were basically shut out of the process for
the last week and presented the document late in the
day. The final issues arose from their objections,
but it was not immediately known how those issues
were resolved, or whether the Sunni objections were
satisfied.
The first issue was that the alliance of Kurds and
clerical Shiites wanted a de-Baathification clause
that would limit the level of position that could be
attained by members of the Baath party. This was
opposed by a group of Sunni Arabs and members of the
secular Iraq List headed by the former prime
minister Ayad Allawi.
Two Federalism issues were also being contended. The
Sunnis and the Allawi group were pressing for a
two-thirds majority vote as being necessary for
people to join together in a federal state. And they
wanted to limit to three the number of current
provinces that could join together.
Finally, the Sunnis and the Iraq List wanted to
establish a two-thirds majority vote for approval of
a prime minister and the presidency. The push for
the two-thirds votes was a concession by the Sunnis
that the Shiite-Kurd coalition had such an advantage
in numbers that they could easily achieve a majority
vote.
On Sunday 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 Mr. 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.
The potentially intractable problem in the process
was the disaffection of Sunni leaders, who had 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 was 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."
Still, the agreement of the Sunni participants was
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.
The Shiites and the Kurds had 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 argued that granting autonomy to the
Shiites, along with the Kurds, who already have it,
could cripple the Iraqi state.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders had 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.
www.nytimes.com
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