It’s Stop and Go for Iraq’s Charter Panel

After weeks of anguish and debate, Iraqi politicians have overcome a significant impasse in their efforts to write a new national constitution.

But the breakthrough this week did not solve disputes over the ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk or the role of Islam in Iraqi law. Instead, it was about the seemingly mundane matter of which Sunni Arabs get to serve on the committee drafting the charter.

Six weeks before the Aug. 15 due date for a draft of the constitution, Iraqi politicians have yet to resolve any of the issues crucial to the country’s future, Iraqi and U.S. officials acknowledge.

“What is written so far is very simple, and we still have a long way to go,” said Salah Mutlak, one of 15 Sunni Arab members of the constitutional committee added Monday as part of a deal to draw Sunnis into the political process.

“Federalism, the shape of the country, relations with other Arab nations and Islam are still pending until now.”

As one Western official put it, “The hardest bargaining has yet to begin. We’ll get into the really heavy horse trading at the end of July.”

Iraq has been operating under the legal cover of a United Nations-approved transitional administrative law, called the TAL, since March of last year.

National elections held Jan. 30 paved the way for the drafting of the constitution, which, under the current schedule, must be submitted for approval to the 275-member transitional National Assembly by Aug. 15. The charter then is to be voted on in a nationwide referendum Oct. 15, followed by elections for a permanent government by year’s end.

From the beginning, the process has been hampered by delays, including a three-month wait before the naming of a transitional government.

The constitutional committee consists of 55 elected members of the National Assembly as well as 15 unelected Sunni Arabs and a member of Iraq’s tiny Sabaean sect added this week in what passed for a milestone in the glacial constitutional process.

Members of the committee have insisted in newspaper reports that over the last two months, the panel had already drawn up 80% of the constitution by the beginning of this week. But other officials said the committee only got around to dividing itself up into six subcommittees two weeks ago.

Officials acknowledged Wednesday that 50% or less was a more accurate assessment of the drafting done so far.

“We cannot say that we have done a great amount,” said Abbas Bayati, one of 28 members of the dominant Shiite Muslim bloc serving on the committee.

As the Sunni Arab members of the committee began poring over the work of the subcommittees completed so far, they expressed surprise that it amounted to little more than notes on issues such as civil rights or the relative power of provinces and the capital.

“What they’ve written are only opinions and suggestions,” Mutlak said.

“Nothing substantial has been done.”

Other members of the committee did not dispute Mutlak’s description.

In what could further slow progress, new members of the committee will have a chance to review, reject and revise the material that has been written.

The constitution also would require the unanimous approval of committee members, forcing them to overcome Iraq’s fractured political, ethnic and sectarian topography.

“There is an insistence on consensus,” said Sheik Abdul Rahman Naimi, a tribal leader and assembly member who serves on the committee as leader of a four-person independent bloc.

Already disputes have bubbled up. Sunni Arabs complain that the Kurds, who also have 15 members on the committee, want too much autonomy, including control over their own militia and authority to issue their own currency.

Pious Muslims serving on the committee have warned that they will reject any constitution relying too heavily on the transitional administrative law, which was put in place last year by L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. chief of the former Coalition Provisional Authority. Some Shiites and Sunnis complain that the TAL is too secular for Iraq’s Islamic character.

Kurds, who are mostly Sunni Muslims but generally believe in secular political rule, warn that they will reject any constitution that draws too heavily from Islamic law.

Iraqis must still decide on the structure of their government: for example, how much power to grant a prime minister and how much to give parliament, and whether the parliament will have one or two chambers. They must decide what rights to specifically spell out for women and ethnic minorities.

In addition, Sunnis such as Mutlak say they plan to use the constitutional process to bring up issues such as a recent National Assembly decision labeling Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party a terrorist organization. “This means alienating millions of Iraqis,” he said.

Some worry that the subcommittee members could while away the dwindling weeks in gestures of political grandstanding.

Still, observers were heartened by the willingness of Iraq’s dominant Shiites and Kurds to welcome the additional Sunnis into the committee, as well as by Sunni Arabs’ eagerness to join.

“The Sunnis’ message is they’re going to fully participate in the process,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), an opponent of the Iraq war who was here Tuesday on a fact-finding mission. “What we’ve heard today, so far, is a greater degree of confidence than I expected that they will meet the Aug. 15 deadline.”

Iraqis can invoke a delay of up to six months in the process, but Bush administration officials have adamantly opposed such a move.

“We feel very strongly, and we’re telling all sides, that the Aug. 15 date should hold, the Oct. 15 date should hold, and the Dec. 15 date should hold,” said a U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Iraqis rarely bring up the idea of a postponement anymore. Jawad Maliki, a Shiite member of the committee, said any delay might cause more problems than it would solve by allowing “infiltrators to manipulate” a volatile political situation.

A sense of urgency has set in among some committee members.

“The time left is a few weeks, and in my opinion, it is not enough,” Bayati said. “But we will not spare any effort to finish the draft of the constitution and will present it as a gift to the Iraqis.”

Times staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell, Shamil Aziz and Raheem Salman contributed to this report.