Iraqis Try to Revive Deal on Charter

A delegation from Iraq’s Governing Council met aides to the country’s top Shiite Muslim cleric Saturday to try to salvage a deal on an interim constitution crucial to U.S. plans to hand power back to Iraqis.

Friday’s planned signing was postponed after five Governing Council members refused to endorse the document, citing concerns from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a reclusive cleric who commands widespread allegiance among the country’s 60% Shiite majority. Council members now hope to sign the document Monday.

Sistani has objected to two clauses in the interim charter. Instead of the current plan for a president and two deputy presidents, he is seeking a five-person presidency in which Shiites would be guaranteed three places to reflect their numbers in the population.

Sistani also opposes a clause that would allow a two-thirds majority of voters in any three provinces to block approval of the final form of the constitution, to be adopted later. That would give the Kurdish ethnic group, for instance, veto power over the document.

Officials would not comment on the talks among the Shiites in Najaf, and it was not clear whether the Shiite politicians were trying to work out alternatives with Sistani, explore what phrasing would be acceptable to him or persuade him to drop his objections.

“I hope and I pray that we will be able to sign this historic document on Monday morning,” Mouwafak Rabii, a leading Shiite member of the council, said.

Seyyid Mohammed Bahr Uloom, a Shiite who is the current head of the council and also traveled to Najaf, said he was “sure that any objections can be resolved.”

Meanwhile on Saturday, the U.S. Army said its troops had fired on a truck rigged with explosives west of Baghdad. The driver was killed and three American soldiers were injured.

And Britain’s Defense Ministry said three Iraqi insurgents were shot dead Friday in a firefight with British forces that left seven soldiers wounded in southeast Iraq.

In Washington, the Justice Department dispatched a high-level team of about 50 lawyers, investigators and prosecutors to Iraq to assemble evidence for war crimes cases against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and members of his regime.

The group -- to be called the Regime Crimes Advisor’s Office -- will report to the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer III.