Constitution to be ready by deadline

Published: 10:22AM Tuesday August 02, 2005 Source: Reuters

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The head of the panel drawing up Iraq's new constitution announced on Monday that a draft would be ready by a mid-August deadline, as US officials had hoped, easing fears divisions could set back the political process.
   
"We can get it completed by August 15," Humam Hammoudi, head of the 71-member drafting committee, told parliament.
   
He said there were still five or six points of difference among drafters but was hopeful they would be resolved on time.
   
Faced with explosive issues such as federalism and the role of religion in the state, the team drafting the constitution had considered taking up to six more months to write it.
   
But the panel came under intense US pressure to submit a draft on time. The Iraqi government and their American backers see the constitution as a key part of any democratic process and hope it can help defuse the two-year-old insurgency.
   
That would in turn allow US troops to withdraw sooner.
   
However, another gruesome discovery reminded Iraqi leaders of the dire security crisis that is overshadowing politics.
   
Twenty bodies of people who had been shot or beheaded were found in southwest Baghdad on Monday, a police source said.
   
One weeping relative of a victim held the decapitated head of a man as it lay on the back of a flatbed truck, pictures taken by a Reuters photographer showed.
   
It was the latest of many killings in recent months that have fuelled sectarian tensions between Shi'ites, who lead the government, and Arab Sunnis once dominant under Saddam Hussein.
   
Witnesses told police they saw a truck dump the bodies near a school in the Om al-Ma'alif area of Baghdad. 
   
Constitution work
   
Drafters of the constitution will have to resolve a host of sensitive issues that cut across sectarian lines if they are to get their task done on time.
   
Hammoudi said only one chapter of the document remained to be written and expected it would be done in the next 10 days. But it is the most sensitive chapter, dealing with federalism.
   
"We will work day and night to finish it on time. Even our Sunni brothers insist on finishing it on time," he said.
   
A women's group called More Than One Source held a news conference to express their concern over the document, saying Islam should not be the only basis for Iraqi law, as desired by some influential Shi'ite religious leaders.
   
"We demand Islam to be one of the sources in legislation, but not the principal source in it," said Rend Raheem, the Iraqi ambassador to Washington, a member of the group.
   
"We are not afraid of Sharia. We are afraid of arbitrary interpretations of Islam, which will restrict freedom."
   
The American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, praised the constitutional process but urged Iraqis living in guerrilla strongholds to avoid being recruited by "terrorists".
   
"I warn Iraqis in central and western Iraq to avoid falling into the trap laid by their enemies," he told a news conference.
   
Insurgent bombings and assassinations have gone on unabated as Iraqis have tried to keep the political process on track.
   
The schedule calls for the draft constitution to be written by August 15, put to a referendum by October 15 and elections for a new government to be held under the charter by December 15. 
   
Politics vs. Insurgency
   
Some constitution panel members warned that rushing the document could backfire because of the deep political and sectarian divisions; others insisted on meeting the deadline.
   
Iraq's government, which took power after January elections, has embarked on a strategy of trying to pacify Arab Sunnis by drawing them into politics and away from the insurgency.
   
Guerrillas have warned Sunni Arabs against joining the political process. One Sunni Arab member of the constitution drafting team was assassinated last month.
   
Although Iraq's government and its US backers are likely to hail commitment to the mid-August deadline as a victory, writers of the document may put aside the most volatile issues, including federalism and distribution of national resources.
   
The Kurds want a federal system that gives them autonomy in the north, where they have enjoyed a de facto state since 1991.
   
Some secular Shi'ites want autonomy in the south. Sunnis favour a centralised government with tight control over oil reserves in the north and south.
   
Religious Shi'ite leaders, many of whom were exiles in Iran during Saddam's rule, say Islamic Sharia law should be the basis of the constitution and every sect should enjoy equal rights.
   
Arab Sunnis fear they will model Iraq after Shi'ite Iran, and even some Shi'ites fear clerics will have too much say.
   
Even if the process goes smoothly, there are no guarantees violence will ease. Predictions that high turnout in January elections would demoralise guerrillas never held true.
   
Gunmen killed a brigadier in the Iraqi security force, opening fire on his car as he crossed a Baghdad bridge, the interior ministry said. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed the attack.

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