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Iraq Council to try again to sign constitution
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-03-08 10:52 Iraq's U.S.-appointed
Governing Council was to meet on Monday to sign an interim constitution crucial
to U.S. plans to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis, after Shi'ite politicians
withdrew their objections.
The signing of the constitution has been delayed twice -- first by bomb
attacks on Shi'ites on Tuesday that killed at least 181 people, and then by
last-minute doubts among Shi'ites that forced a high-profile ceremony on Friday
to be abandoned.
Representatives of the five groups that backed out on Friday spent the
weekend in the holy city of Najaf talking with top clerics including Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, who wields immense influence over Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite
majority.
They announced on Sunday that Sistani still had deep reservations about the
document but had given them the go-ahead to sign it in the interests of
advancing political transition. Under a U.S. timetable, an Iraqi government is
to take over sovereignty on June 30 and elections are to be held by the end of
January next year.
The Council was expected to convene at 10 a.m. (2 a.m. EST).
"We will sign the interim constitution on Monday as it stands," Mohammed
Hussein Bahr al-Uloum, son and chief adviser of Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, the
current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, told Reuters in Najaf on
Sunday.
"We don't want the rest of the Council to fear that the Shi'ites want to
demolish the whole process. We don't want them to fear that the Shi'ites are
trying to control things."
The main point of dispute has been a clause in the constitution that may
allow Iraq's Sunni Muslim Kurdish minority to veto a planned permanent
constitution if it does not enshrine their right to autonomy in three northern
provinces.
The Kurds, who have ruled three provinces of northern Iraq since wresting
them from Saddam's control after the 1991 Gulf war, had said that if the clause
was not included they would not sign, and the issue risked opening a new rift
among Iraq's ethnic and religious groups.
Last week's bomb attacks on Shi'ites raised fears of sectarian strife with
Sunni Muslims.
SECURITY FORCES ON ALERT
U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad are on high alert against
any attempt by guerrillas to disrupt the signing of the constitution.
On Sunday evening, 10 rockets were fired at the headquarters of the U.S.-led
administration in Baghdad, close to where the document is to be signed. There
were no serious injuries, officials said.
Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer said in interviews on U.S. television he was
confident the signing would go ahead on Monday. "We've noted the statement by
the current president of the Governing Council that they do intend to sign it,"
he said.
Mohammed Hussein al-Hakim, who is the son of a senior Najaf cleric and sat in
on the discussions in Najaf, said clerics were unhappy with the document but
understood its importance.
"The religious authorities have made their position clear to the politicians,
but don't want to interfere directly," Hakim told Reuters. "They have deep
reservations, but also know this interim constitution is a step in the right
direction."
Others present said Sistani would have liked to push for changes, but felt
the furthest he could go was to make his objections clear and leave it up to the
politicians to do what they felt necessary.
Sistani, a 73-year-old Iranian-born religious scholar, has increasingly
exerted his influence on politics in recent months.
He has expressed objections to the U.S. timetable for handing back power,
forcing the Americans to bring forward planned elections. Sistani was also
strongly against giving the Kurds veto power over a permanent constitution.
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