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Iraq Shi'ites aim to push through constitution

Posted on: Monday, 22 August 2005, 11:52 CDT

By Michael Georgy and Andrew Hammond

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamists prepared to force a constitution through parliament before a midnight Monday deadline but minority Sunnis vowed to vote it down in a referendum and warned of civil war.

President Bush, campaigning to quell growing disquiet at home over the costly military occupation of Iraq, has pressed hard for the U.S.-sponsored timetable to be respected and says it will help sap the Sunni Arab insurgency.

A draft prepared without the participation of minority Sunni Arab delegates appeared nonetheless to give ground to some of their concerns about Shi'ites and Kurds hiving off powerful federal regions in the oil-rich north and south.

A text seen by Reuters defined Iraq as a "federal" republic. Details on the extent and mechanisms of autonomy would be worked out later, delegates involved in drafting the text said.

Sunnis, outraged at what they called a "breach of consensus," stood by a demand that "federalism" be left out of the charter altogether and said otherwise Iraq could break up.

"All the history of Iraq's problems is contained in this constitution -- racism, sectarianism and secession," said Sunni delegate Hussein Shukur al-Falluji. "If they pass this constitution, then the rebellion will reach its peak."

With parliament, where Shi'ites have a big majority, risking dissolution if no draft were adopted by midnight, senior Shi'ites said the text would be passed comfortably and put to the nation, as scheduled, in a referendum by October 15.

"An agreed draft of the constitution will be presented to parliament and we expect that it will meet with broad acceptance, including from the Sunnis," deputy parliamentary speaker Hussain al-Shahristani told Reuters.

"CIVIL WAR"

Few Sunnis could be found to endorse the proposal, however.

"We will not be silent," Soha Allawi, another Sunni Arab member of the drafting committee, told Reuters.

"We will campaign for public awareness 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," she said.

Kurdish leaders helped negotiate the draft; delegate Abdel Khalek Zangana said the provision on federalism was enough to satisfy Kurdish demands for guarantees they would retain the broad autonomy they already have in the north.

One Sunni Arab leader said the text had dropped wording that forbade secession from Iraq; Kurdish leaders say they do not want to break away entirely, but want to keep the option open.

U.S. diplomats, led by ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, architect of the new Afghan constitution, have been working hard to save the deadline. Secular Kurdish delegates had complained he had made concessions to the Shi'ite Islamists in allowing for a greater role for Islam in Iraqi law.

The draft document, seen in part by Reuters, described Iraq as a "republican, parliamentarian, democratic and federal" state. No section on Islam and the law was available.

Leaders of the Sunni Arab community, dominant under Saddam Hussein and the seat of an insurgency against the U.S.-backed interim government, had warned the constitution could be voted down. Interim rules say it will fail if in three of Iraq's 18 provinces, two thirds of voters reject the charter.

In former rebel strongholds like Falluja and across the Sunni heartlands of the north and west, which largely shunned the January polls that produced the Shi'ite and Kurd-dominated interim legislature, voters have been registering in numbers.

SHI'ITES SPLIT

Some Shi'ites, notably supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who has a strong following in resource-poor central Iraq, also reject federalism and demand "Iraqi unity."

With discontent spreading at the government's failure to curb violence or improve living standards, rival parties see a chance to embarrass it at the polls.

Former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite with allies among Sunnis, has been marking out his distance from the ruling coalition, led by Shi'ite Islamists and Kurds.

Some critics, backed by concerned Sunni governments in other Arab states, complain Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran -- Washington's rival in the region -- is influencing the government.

Some even accuse Tehran of seeking to break up its Arab neighbor, formed by British imperialists out of the collapsed Ottoman empire in 1918, and of promoting the formation of a Shi'ite state in the oil-rich south. Most Iraqi Shi'ites, about 60 percent of the population, reject such charges.

If the referendum ratifies the constitution, voting in December will be for a full-term parliament with full powers.

Though portrayed in Washington as a key test of Iraq's cohesion and ability to overcome the threat of civil war, there is little sign clinching a deal will ease the bloodshed.

Gunmen killed 10 people, including eight policemen, driving in a minivan north of Baghdad on Monday.

Source: REUTERS

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