Iraq assembly gets charter draft, Sunnis irate<\/p>\n
Alastair Macdonald, Reuters\/Baghdad<\/p>\n
Iraq's Shiite-led government ruled out on Tuesday any major
\nchange to a draft constitution that parliament looks set to pass
\nthis week in the teeth of minority Sunni objections that it could
\nignite civil war.<\/p>\n
\"The draft that was submitted is approximately the draft that
\nwill be implemented,\" government spokesman Laith Kubba said after
\nparliament received the text before a midnight deadline. The
\nassembly put off a vote for three days to let tempers cool.<\/p>\n
President Jalal Talabani, who has brought Iraqi leaders
\ntogether for weeks in a bid to keep the political process on
\ntrack, renewed mediation efforts.<\/p>\n
A statement from his office said the Kurdish leader urged all
\nIraqi sects to unite on the issue of the constitution, which the
\ngovernment hopes will undermine the Sunni insurgency.<\/p>\n
The Shiite head of the parliamentary drafting committee again
\nmade clear he did not intend to reopen contentious clauses such
\nas those on autonomous \"federal\" regions which Arab Sunnis say
\ndiscriminate against them and could break up the state.<\/p>\n
Humam Hamoudi said the Sunni negotiators brought in from
\noutside parliament were not representative and that the assembly
\nshould now submit the draft to a referendum.<\/p>\n
Sunni leaders, who largely shunned a January election that
\ngave Shiites and Kurds control of parliament, said they were
\nmobilizing support for a \"no\" vote in the October referendum.<\/p>\n
U.S. diplomats, under pressure from Washington to keep Iraqi
\nnegotiators to a timetable laid down under American supervision
\nlast year, say they will go on working for a consensus that can
\ndraw the once-dominant Sunnis away from violent opposition.<\/p>\n
But one participant in the talks said a comprehensive deal
\nwould require a Sunni change of heart. \"The only possible change
\nnow is that the Sunnis become convinced on federalism,\" said
\nJalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a Shiite cleric on the drafting team.<\/p>\n
Shiites and Kurds said they might offer minor concessions, but
\nwere ready to use their parliamentary muscle to push through the
\ndraft.<\/p>\n
\"If it passes, there will be an uprising in the streets,\"
\nSunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said after the brief sitting.<\/p>\n
\"We will campaign ... to tell both Sunnis and Shiites to
\nreject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the
\nbreak-up of Iraq and civil war,\" Soha Allawi, another Sunni on
\nthe drafting committee, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Interim rules say the charter will fail if two thirds of
\nvoters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it. By some
\nreckoning, that could happen in the three provinces around the
\ncities of Mosul, Tikrit and Ramadi, north and west of Baghdad.<\/p>\n
Iraq's government hopes the constitution will divert more
\nSunnis from insurgency into peaceful politics. Fresh violence
\nunderlined what a tough challenge it is facing.<\/p>\n
Three car bombs exploded in quick succession near U.S. forces
\nin Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in an apparently coordinated strike
\nby insurgents, police and witnesses said.<\/p>\n
In the first blast, a car blew up as a U.S. convoy passed
\nthrough the center of the Sunni city, police said.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, a suicide truck bomber rammed his vehicle into
\na building frequently occupied by U.S. troops in an industrial
\nzone on the edge of Ramadi, witnesses said.<\/p>\n
As U.S. troops arrived, a third bomb, concealed in a car
\nparked near a mosque, went off, a reporter for Reuters near the
\nscene said. There was no immediate word on U.S. or Iraqi
\ncasualties.<\/p>\n
In Ad Dawr, close to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town,
\nhundreds of Sunnis demonstrated against the draft constitution.
\n\"Long live the honorable insurgency,\" the crowd yelled.<\/p>\n
Some Shiites, notably radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, also
\nreject federalism. But government-run television showed wild
\nrejoicing in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after news of the
\nruling coalition's plans to force through its charter.<\/p>\n
Secular Shiites, notably a party led by U.S.-backed former
\ninterim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, have voiced doubts at the way
\nthe draft constitution is being pushed through parliament.<\/p>\n
The draft makes Islam \"a main source\" of law in an apparent
\ncompromise between Islamist Chateaus and secular Kurds.<\/p>",
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