BAGHDAD, 24 August 2005 — Iraq’s Shiite-led government yesterday ruled out any major change to a draft constitution that Parliament looks set to pass this week as US President George W. Bush called on minority Sunni Arabs to accept it. “The draft that was submitted is approximately the draft that will be implemented,” government spokesman Laith Kubba said after Parliament received the text before a midnight Monday deadline.
Sunni leaders, who largely shunned a January election that gave Shiites and Kurds control of Parliament, quickly indicated they would try to mobilize support for a “No” vote in the October referendum on the charter.
The constitution will be rejected if two thirds of voters in three or more of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote “No”. The Sunnis are a clear majority in at least three provinces in the heartland of the insurgency: Anbar, Salaheddin and Nineveh.
A Sunni delegation met Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission to discuss ways of ensuring participation in those three regions, the commission said in a statement.
Asked about the possibility that Sunni rejection of the document would lead to civil war, Bush replied: “The Sunnis have got to make a choice. Do they want to live in a society that’s free, or do they want to live in violence?” “I suspect most mothers, no matter what their religion may be, will choose a free society so their children can grow up in a peaceful world,” the president said after touring a mountain resort near Donnelly, Idaho.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who has brought Iraqi leaders together for weeks in a bid to keep the political process on track and defuse a Sunni insurgency, renewed mediation efforts. But all sides held fast to their positions.
The Shiite head of the parliamentary drafting committee again made clear he did not intend to reopen contentious clauses such as those on autonomous “federal” regions which Sunni Arabs say discriminate against them and could break up the state.
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein has sacked his entire foreign defense team and will in future deal only with his Iraqi lawyer, the special tribunal trying him confirmed.
“The head of the investigative judges team questioned Saddam... on whether he had dismissed all his lawyers except the Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi,” a statement said.
“Saddam confirmed that he has dismissed all lawyers and canceled their authorizations... and that the only authorized lawyer is Khalil Dulaimi,” it added, without specifying when the hearing took place.
