OK, since we've all been mired in Schiavo-land for the past few weeks, Iraq has been attempting to form its new government. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, and it's interesting to see the Shiites and Kurds trying to woo the Sunnis with leadership roles. Anyway, I thought this would be where we could discuss the progress, and what it means to the region and the world. It's definitely off with a bang.

Chaotic Iraq Assembly Closes Doors to the Media

By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — Iraq's new National Assembly was only 10 minutes into its second session Tuesday when members became mired in a shouting match that caused leaders to close the gathering to the media. The meeting broke up after an hour with no progress toward forming a government.

After offering Iraqis a rare glimpse of open debate in a legislative body they had elected, lawmakers ordered the media to turn off their cameras. Local television stations began to play music instead of broadcasting the breaking news — much as they had done on government orders during Saddam Hussein's time, onlookers noted.

The disarray is the result of a hardball struggle between individual politicians as well as political blocs over how to share power. Though many policy differences between the factions have been resolved, undecided are the vice presidents' and deputy prime ministers' seats and the distribution of the ministries.

"The problem is that so far there are no mutual understandings among the principal political blocs," said Abdul Karim Mohammedawi, a Shiite Muslim from the assembly's largest bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, who is known for his independent views.

Although several prominent members said they expected the transitional assembly to convene Sunday and name a speaker and two vice speakers after Sunni Muslims have had a chance to decide on a candidate for the speakership, the formation of a government is still probably weeks away.

The political turmoil has worsened in the weeks since Iraq's historic elections Jan. 30, as the heady excitement over the balloting has faded and the negotiations have become increasingly hard-fought.

Complicating matters is the fact that the two largest blocs in the assembly — the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance and the ethnic Kurds — are trying to draw Sunni Arabs into the government, in part by offering them the speaker's post.

Iraq's Sunni voters largely boycotted the elections, and as a consequence it is difficult to determine who among the few Sunni assembly members has support in their broader community.

"Why would they call for a meeting of the National Assembly if they had not reached any compromises or joint agreements about mechanisms or about the persons who are going to be at the top of the National Assembly?" asked Mohammedawi, echoing the frustration voiced by many Iraqis on the streets.

The assembly is responsible for selecting the country's interim president and two vice presidents. That presidential council will choose a prime minister, who in turn will name a Cabinet and form the government. The assembly also is expected to write a national constitution.

Tuesday's disorder followed an announcement by Ghazi Ajil Yawer, president in the interim national government, which the assembly is seeking to replace, that he would turn down the position of assembly speaker.

His announcement, made to the media Monday night, caught the assembly leadership off guard. The position then was offered to another prominent Sunni Arab member of the legislature, interim Minister of Industry Hachim Hassani. He turned it down as well, saying that without a major political bloc — his party has just five of the 275 seats in the assembly — he would be little more than a figurehead.

Hassani also hopes to be named defense minister, a post the United Iraqi Alliance has said could go to a Sunni.

Now the 17 Sunnis in the assembly are going back to the drawing board to find a candidate for speaker.

It will not be easy. Other than Yawer and Hassani, few of the Sunni members are well-known. In addition, several were elected as part of the Shiites' United Iraqi Alliance — and thus are unlikely to be accepted by most Sunnis.

A new source of uncertainty is that after weeks of negotiations between the Kurds and the United Iraqi Alliance, the former have begun to negotiate with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's smaller party.

Allawi's bloc, like the Kurdish faction, is largely secular. The Kurds apparently are seeking to create a counterweight in a possible government dominated by religious Shiites.

However, Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of the current interim government, said he and his fellow Kurds were merely intent on ensuring that everyone was part of the government.

"We are talking with Allawi's party … and we are trying to make a national unity government," he said. "The Kurds are serious about that. Iraq was ruled by a tiny minority to the exclusion of the Shiites and Kurds, who paid dearly for that."

After the election, members of Allawi's Iraqi List bloc appeared reluctant to take an active role unless he was allowed to continue on as prime minister — an unlikely outcome since the party won comparatively few seats. Now they seem ready to take part and in a mood to bargain.

Falah Nakib, interior minister in the current government and a member of the Iraqi List, noted to reporters that a ministry was being granted to parties or blocs for every 10 seats in the assembly. By that rationale, he said, "we should have four ministries since we have 40 seats."

Shortly after Nakib's comments, Allawi stalked out of the National Assembly session, followed by Yawer.

The session opened with a call to elect a speaker, but a veiled member rose and berated the assembly's leaders for conducting their business behind closed doors where few members of the assembly, much less the Iraqi people, know what is going on.

"We and the Iraqi people want to know what is going on behind the curtains and in the corridors," she said. "I demand now that all details should be revealed to the other assembly members and the Iraqi people so that everybody knows what is slowing up the political process."

A member of Allawi's bloc, Shiite cleric Hussein Sadr, faulted the assembly for dragging its feet.

"We can't do our job as members of the National Assembly unless we elect a speaker and his deputies … so that we can start our central task, which is to write the constitution," he said.

"The people are waiting for us to get to work," he said, his voice rising.

People began to shout to be heard. A moment later, Dhari Fayad, the oldest member of the assembly and for now its ceremonial speaker, closed the proceedings to the public.

"We ask the media to leave," he said, "so that we can hold the meeting behind closed doors so that we can discuss our affairs."

In less than an hour, the meeting adjourned.

Great thread, Ara.

It's going to be a challenge to achieve cooperation with these ethnic groups that have had a history of strife.

Many people seem to be pushing for things to get done quickly. There must be a lot of pressure to do so. But I think the reality is that it will take quite a while for things to start to fall into place.

Maybe it would be best if Iraq was dissolved. Alll that colonialism Europe did sure fucked up the world.

It worked for the Palestinians. Look how happy and peaceful they are now ...

Dammit man. Just fuck the entire middle east, central asia, and most of africa. Fuck 'em I'm tired of it.

Iraqi Parliament Set to Name Kurd as New President

Good to see some progress being made.

...and now it's official (link to story)

Congratulations to Jalal Talabani and the people of Iraq, especially the Kurdish people. While they still have a way to go, this is yet another important and monumental step.

Well, unfortunately this stage of the process hasn't been going to smoothly. As expected, Sunnis have held out, and the Shiites are losing patience.

Iraq locked in charter talks after new deadline missed

18 minutes ago

Iraqi negotiators were locked in last-ditch talks to try to convince disgruntled Sunni Arabs to sign up to the draft constitution after missing a third deadline for a parliament vote.

A Kurdish negotiator said the majority Shiites were under pressure to shelve their demand for Kurdish-style autonomy in a bid to win over the Sunnis, whose support is seen as crucial in efforts to end the deadly insurgency.

"Today is the final day, and the last chance to discuss the draft constitution. We hope to reach an agreement that would satisfy everyone," Mahmud Othman told AFP.

Iraq on Thursday cancelled a parliament session to approve the draft constitution as the protracted negotiations between the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis were unable to reach a consensus on thorny issues.

But parliament speaker Hajim al-Hasani said the draft will be put to the nation in an October 15 referendum even if it fails to win overall consensus.

The constitution, key to the war-torn country's political transition and an eventual withdrawal of foreign troops, has been dogged by differences on federalism, the role of Islam and sharing of oil wealth.

The latest political haggling comes against a backdrop of violence following clashes between rival Shiite groups and the discovery of the bodies of 37 tortured and executed men in a stream south of Baghdad.

On Friday rebels killed at least 11 people across Iraq, including two policemen shot dead by gunmen in the restive mainly Sunni town of Baquba and two Danish soldiers were wounded in southern Iraq in a roadside bombing.

Negotiators said talks were now focusing on the main sticking point -- federalism -- to persuade Shiites to give up demands for autonomy in the southern and central regions.

"There are attempts to convince the (Shiite) alliance to leave the issue of federalism in other parts of Iraq (south and centre) for the next parliament to deal with, and also to implement it gradually over two or three years. Not now," Othman said.

The Shiite demand for a Kurdish-type autonomy is largely fuelled by a desire to control a chunk of the country's vast oil reserves located in the Shiite south.

The Sunni Arabs, once dominant under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein but now under-represented in parliament, have been opposing their demands, fearing that a federal structure will rob them of the oil wealth.

Othman said the Sunnis were nevertheless showing signs of softening their demands.

Sources close to negotiations said the main reason for the sustained delay was that Iraqi leaders and US officials are keen to get Sunni approval and weaken the insurgency.

"I think that the support for the insurgency will probably broaden if the Sunnis feel like their interests are not protected," said US General John Vines, head of the multinational troops in Iraq.

Othman said the Sunnis also opposed any reference to Saddam's old Baath party in the constitution.

"Sunni Arabs say that there is a law stipulating banning the Baath party, and that there is no need to mention Baath in the constitution," he said.

One article in the constitution's first chapter entitled "Fundamental Principles", bans any entity which advocates racism, terrorism or ethnic cleansing, especially the Baath Party even under a new name.

Hundreds of supporters of Saddam took to the streets of Baquba and the mixed northern oil centre of Kirkuk to demonstrate against the draft constitution.

"Sunni Arabs are determined to defeat the constitution if they feel eliminated," warned protestor Sheikh Abdel Karim al-Jaburi.

The Sunnis, who largely boycotted the January elections, are gearing up for a show of strength in the planned December elections that could lead to a new power equation in parliament.

"We believe that federalism should be postponed until the next parliament (is elected)," said Sunni negotiator Hassib Arif al-Obaidi.

"We think that circumstances are not suitable at the moment to implement it. We need a peaceful environment in the presence of a balanced national assembly, in which we can discuss this matter adequately."

In Iraq's 275-member national assembly, the Shiites and Kurds jointly hold about 210 seats, while the Sunnis hold around two dozen.
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Shiites Offer Compromise on Constitution

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 4 minutes ago

Prodded by President Bush, Shiite negotiators Friday offered what they called their final compromise proposal to Sunnis Arabs to try to break the impasse over Iraq's new constitution, a Shiite official said.

Bush telephoned a key Shiite leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, on Thursday to urge consensus over the draft, Abbas al-Bayati told The Associated Press.

The Shiites were awaiting a response from the Sunnis, al-Bayati said.

He said the concessions were on the pivotal issues of federalism and efforts to remove former members of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party from public life, adding: "We cannot offer more than that."

Al-Bayati said the Shiites had proposed that the parliament expected to be elected in December be given the right to issue a law on the mechanism of implementing federalism. He gave no further details.

The constitution provides for a federal state, one in which provinces would have significant powers in contrast to Saddam's regime in which Sunnis dominated a strong central government.

The charter will allow any number of provinces to combine and form a federal state with broader powers. The Sunnis have demanded a limit of three provinces, the number the Kurds have in their self-ruled region in the north. The Sunnis have publicly accepted the continued existence of the Kurdish regional administration within its current boundaries.

But without limits, Sunnis fear not only a giant Shiite state in the south but also future bids by the Kurds to expand their region, as they have demanded. That would leave the Sunnis cut off from Iraq's oil wealth in the north and south.

On the Baath Party, he said it will be up to the next parliament to set a timetable for the work of the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification. That would presumably involve how long the commission would operate.

The Sunnis had insisted that the issue of dividing Iraq into federated regions be deferred until after the December parliamentary election. Many Sunnis boycotted the Jan. 30 election for the current parliament, which is dominated by the Shiites and Kurds.

Sadoun Zubaydi, a Sunni member of the drafting committee, said the Sunnis would have to see the fine points of the Shiite proposal first. If the proposal does not make concessions on the principle of federalism but only the mechanism, this would not meet Sunni demands.

"Our position is that both the principle and mechanism should be deferred," Zubaydi told the AP. "Our policy is decentralization, but not political federalism with borders, division of resources, etc. That is separatism, not federalism."

However, the issue of federalism is complex, and some key Sunnis have taken a harder line against it than their negotiators. Some Sunni clerics have also condemned as anti-Islamic parts of the document their own negotiators have accepted.

"Don't follow constitutions of the infidels," influential Sunni cleric Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidaei told the congregation Friday at the Umm al-Qura mosque. "We don't want a constitution that brings the curse of separation and division to this country."

Al-Bayati and fellow Shiite negotiator Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite member of the committee drafting the charter said Bush telephoned al-Hakim after Shiites said the negotiations were deadlocked and the draft submitted to parliament on Monday should go to the voters in the Oct. 15 referendum as is.

But bypassing the Sunnis would risk a backlash among the community at the core of the insurgency and which the Americans want to encourage to join the political process.

Al-Adeeb said said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had also appealed to Iraq's powerful Shiite clergy, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to help resolve the standoff.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Mitchell referred all such queries to the White House.

With no sign of progress Thursday, Shiite officials said they believed talks were at a standstill and there was no legal requirement anyway to have parliament vote on a draft that was approved Monday by the Shiites and Kurds.

Following Bush's call, parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani announced officials would try again to reach unanimity Friday after the latest deadline passed at midnight Thursday.

Al-Adeeb said al-Hakim told the president that the Shiite bloc was made up of several groups "and they might reject the constitution if the article on the Baath Party is removed."

That appeared to be a play for time to allow consultation with al-Sistani, who wields vast influence among Iraqi Shiites and whose tacit endorsement enabled al-Hakim's Shiite Alliance to win most of the 275 seats in the January parliamentary election.

Shiites suffered under Saddam and hatred for the party runs deep. Al-Hakim himself lost many close relatives to Saddam's purges. A move by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, to quietly reinstate some former Baath members in the security services cost him considerable Shiite support, and his party fared poorly in the January election.

Al-Sistani and the Shiites have bedeviled the Americans over the constitution issue since the early weeks of the occupation. The Bush administration wanted a constitution written as quickly and in 2003 suggested a panel of Iraqi legal experts draft it.

But the powerful al-Sistani decreed that no constitution written by unelected officials was acceptable, and the Americans dropped the idea.

U.S. officials then wanted the document written by an assembly whose members would be chosen in a series of regional caucuses. Al-Sistani objected to caucuses and that idea was dropped.

It is ironic that the Americans are calling on the Shiites, who suffered terribly under Saddam, to make concessions over the purging of his allies. That suggests the Bush administration is eager for some kind of constitution as a sign of progress at a time of growing disaffection within the United States over the Iraq war.

The United States, hoping to lure Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency, had pressed the Shiites and Kurds to accept unelected 15 Sunni negotiators on the drafting committee last spring to ensure that the pivotal community was represented. Sunni Arabs form the core of the insurgency.

On Friday, about 5,000 people, some carrying Saddam's picture, rallied in the mostly Sunni city of Baqouba to protest the draft constitution. The rally was organized by the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, a Sunni group whose spokesman is a constitution negotiator.

Al-Hassani, a Sunni who was elected on the mostly Sunni ticket headed by former President Ghazi al-Yawer, agreed that the law does not require a parliament vote. But Kurdish negotiator Mahmoud Othman acknowledged U.S. pressure but would not confirm that Bush had called al-Hakim.

Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, said federalism, especially al-Hakim's demand for a Shiite mini-state in the south, remained the major obstacle. But they said the Kurds were unwilling to budge on that issue in order to protect their own self-ruled region in three northern provinces.

"Federalism is now the core issue. In light of Kurdish intransigence it makes it difficult to hope for a compromise," said Sadoun Zubaydi, a Sunni member of the drafting committee.

Sunni Arabs fear that federalism will lead to the breakup of the country and deprive them of oil wealth, concentrated in the Shiite south and the north, much of it in areas the Kurds rule or want to incorporate.

But Kurds and the majority Shiites bitterly recall decades of oppression at the hands of Saddam's Sunni-dominated dictatorship. They believe federalism is the best way to prevent a new dictator.

Zubaydi said the Sunni delegation had proposed granting the Kurdish north — consisting of three provinces — full federal status, with decentralized local government for the remaining 15 provinces.

The Sunnis want federalism limited to three provinces, while the current draft sets no limit on the number which could join a federal region. The Kurds oppose measures which would limit the size of self-ruled area because they want to incorporate oil-rich Kirkuk — which contains substantial non-Kurdish populations.

The bitter negotiations, rather than serving to bring the country's disparate ethnic, cultural and religious groups closer together appear instead to be pushing them further apart.

Although the constitution requires only a simple majority in the referendum, if two-thirds of the voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it, the charter will be defeated.

Sunni Arabs are about 20 percent of the national population but form the majority in at least four provinces. Sunni clerics have begun urging their followers to reject the charter in the referendum if Sunni interests are not served.

If voters reject it, parliament will be dissolved and elections held by Dec. 15 to form a new one. The new parliament then starts drafting a new constitution.

Only one nation in the ME has a populace capable of democracy. Iraq will just create a temporary government to the US out, then be divided up into a Kurdish region and Saudi Arabia jr. and Iran jr. Racism is simlpy too powerful there.

Thanks for given the two of the most evil nations in the world even more power Mr. Bush while wasting ours. It long past time to bankrupt the ME. F**k 'em. They have dragged the rest of humaity down for too long.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/front2453606.226388889.html

Sunnis Reject Draft of Iraqi Constitution

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago

Iraqi negotiators finished the country's new constitution Sunday without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs who helped prepare it, dealing a blow to the Bush administration and setting the stage for a bitter campaign leading up to an October referendum.

The 15 members of the Sunni panel said they rejected the document because of disagreements over such issues as federalism, Iraq's identity and references to Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.

Sunni Arab negotiators also said in a joint statement that they had asked the United Nations and Arab League to intervene.

The document, which included last-minute changes aimed at easing Sunni concerns, was read to lawmakers. It was not put to a vote in the assembly, where the Shiite-Kurdish bloc has an overwhelming majority.

"The constitution is left to our people to approve or reject it," President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said at a ceremony marking the document's completion. "I hope that our people will accept it despite some flaws."

Talabani acknowledged that the Sunni Arabs had objections to the draft "but everybody had reservations. This is part of democracy ... If the people do not approve it, we will draft another constitution."

Hajim al-Hassani, the Sunni Arab speaker of the legislature, was not present, but deputy speaker Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite, told reporters that the speaker agreed with all parts of the draft and had "other appointments."

Al-Hassani played a major role in the final negotiations on the charter, which now goes to the Iraqi people in an Oct. 15 referendum.

Technically, no vote was required by parliament. At one time, officials wanted a vote as an affirmation of unity between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, but that idea was shelved because of Sunni objections to the document and repeated delays in finalizing the draft.

Sheik Humam Hammoudi, chairman of the drafting committee, said the constitution "guarantees freedoms and equalizes between everyone, women and men and different ethnic groups and respects the ideologies of this nation and the religion of this society."

But the 15-member Sunni negotiating team immediately rejected the document, which it called "illegitimate."

"We call upon the Arab League, the United Nations and international organizations to intervene so that this document is not passed and so that the clear defect in it is corrected," said the statement read by Abdul-Nasser al-Janabi.

A top Sunni negotiator, Saleh al-Mutlaq, told Alhurra Television that all opponents of the constitution will hold a conference to decide their next move. He gave no date.

"Now we will move to a general conference that includes all groups that did not take part in the (Jan. 30) elections to take a decision," he told the U.S.-funded station.

Al-Mutlaq said earlier the Sunni negotiators would not sign off on the final draft because of objections to provisions that allegedly threaten Iraqi unity — particularly federalism — and fail to affirm the country's Arab identity. The draft refers to Iraq as an Islamic — but not Arab — country as the Sunnis demanded.

"I think if this constitution passes as it is, it will worsen everything in the country," he said.

At the same time, al-Mutlaq urged all Iraqis to refrain from violence.

Another top Sunni negotiator, Mohammed Abed-Rabbou, said the Sunni team refused to endorse the draft because "points of disagreement" were not amended, including proposals to transform Iraq into a federated country and references to Saddam's party.

The comments set the stage for a bitter political battle before the October referendum, when Iraqis will decide whether to accept or reject the document. Five million copies of the constitution will be circulated nationwide in food allotments each Iraqi family receives monthly from the government.

Sunnis account for only 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, but they are in a strong position to derail the constitution. If two-thirds of voters in any three provinces reject the charter, the constitution will be defeated. Sunnis have the majority in at least four provinces.

After two months of talks, negotiators for the Shiite-Kurd bloc and the Sunnis remained divided over such fundamental issues as:

• Whether Iraq should be turned into a federal state or decentralized by granting more power to provincial authorities;

• How the country's oil wealth will be divided;

• Whether Baath Party members should be purged from government; and

• Whether Iraq will be considered an Arab or Islamic nation.

The deadlock came despite frantic U.S. efforts to secure a political consensus that hopefully would deliver a massive vote for the charter — taking the steam out of the Sunni-led insurgency and enabling a withdrawal of U.S. troops to start next year.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met with various negotiators and al-Hassani late Saturday trying to broker wording acceptable to the Sunnis.

Khalilzad told CNN's "Late Edition" that while the Sunnis did not get everything they wanted in the constitution, neither did the other blocs.

"None of the communities are 100 percent happy with the draft," he said. "A constitution is not a party platform. It's a common road map."

Sunni leaders said their people should oppose the charter peacefully by voting "no" in the referendum.

"The (Sunni) bloc should now convene a general conference to decide how to proceed," Sadoun Zubaydi said. "Boycotting the referendum and parliamentary elections (in December) would be a lose-lose proposition. Our hope will be in the next parliament that will hopefully be more balanced than this one."

In other developments:

• A suicide car bomber targeting a U.S. patrol in southeastern Mosul killed three civilians, police said.

• Iraqi police found nine bodies in Mosul's al Intisar neighborhood. Eight victims were civilians and the other a policeman, authorities said.

• The government's top Sunni cleric said 36 bodies found three days ago in a dry riverbed near the Iranian border were believed to be Sunni Arabs.

Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, head of the government's Sunni Endowments, said the bodies "are believed to be for people from (Baghdad's northern neighborhood of) Hurriyah and they belong to the Sunni sect." The cleric did not give further details.

If true, the killings are likely to heighten sectarian tensions. Both Sunnis and Shiites have accused one another of involvement in "death squad" assassinations of members of the rival sect.

All the men were shot in the head, and some were handcuffed. The bodies were discovered near Badrah, southeast of Baghdad.

• In the southern city of Kut, authorities said they found the bodies of six people who were handcuffed, blindfolded and tortured.

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