Iraqis Again Get Ready to Sign a Constitution

Iraq’s Governing Council prepared to sign a new democratic constitution today after Shiite Muslim holdouts agreed to drop objections that had prompted the cancellation of a signing ceremony last week.

The signing appeared set to go ahead despite a heavy rocket barrage Sunday near the convention center where the ceremony was to take place. Attackers fired at least seven rockets from a sport-utility vehicle about 7:25 p.m., military spokesmen said. Five of them hit a hotel directly opposite the convention center in the heavily fortified, U.S.-controlled area of Baghdad known as the Green Zone.

One person was reported injured -- an American employee of a private security firm who suffered minor shrapnel wounds and returned to duty after treatment.

The intensity and timing of Sunday’s strikes fueled wide speculation that insurgents may be hoping to disrupt the on-again, off-again constitution signing.

The document -- negotiated by the 25-member council last week -- has been lauded by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer III and President Bush as an important building block for a new Iraq as the planned June 30 hand-over of power to Iraqi authorities draws near.

Five Shiite members of the Governing Council announced Sunday that they now intend to sign the interim constitution. The five had refused to give their approval Friday, citing concerns about the draft law raised by Iraq’s senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Sistani, who rarely leaves his headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, objected to a provision that would scuttle adoption of a final constitution if two-thirds of voters in three provinces cast ballots against it. Sistani asserted that a small minority of the country could hold the majority hostage.

Shiites are estimated to make up at least 60% of Iraq’s 25 million people, but ethnic Kurds form a strong majority in three northeastern provinces.

Hamid Bayati, spokesman for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group, said Sistani also wanted to make sure the next president, who will presumably be Shiite, would not be hamstrung by two deputy presidents expected to be picked from the Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.

Negotiations within the council took place Friday night, and a delegation of Shiite politicians traveled to Najaf over the weekend to consult with Sistani. By late Sunday, it appeared he had given them a go-ahead to sign the document’s original version.

“We will sign the interim constitution Monday as it stands,” Mohammed Hussein Bahr Uloom, son of and chief advisor to Seyyid Mohammed Bahr Uloom, the current president of the council, said in Najaf. “Sistani has reservations, but it will not constitute an obstacle.”

The intervention by Sistani had raised concerns among Kurdish and other politicians that the religious leader might try to micromanage Iraq’s future political decisions and defend Shiite interests at the expense of other groups. Kurdish leaders vowed not to compromise on the procedures for ratifying the permanent constitution because they said doing so could subject them to a dictatorship of the majority.

The 60-article temporary constitution -- which includes what its framers portray as a model bill of rights guaranteeing individual freedoms and tolerance -- is to come into force July 1 and remain in effect through December 2005, allowing time for the election of a parliament that would then frame a permanent constitution.

After the last-minute cancellation of Friday’s signing, Bremer himself seemed to take a cautious attitude toward today’s event.

“I think it’s a little early to know” if the signing will take place, he said in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

“A number of people who were out of town have not yet come back. And I’m sure they will want to talk among themselves and among the other members of the Governing Council, and we’ll just have to see.”

Although coalition officials said there was no definitive link between Sunday’s rocket attack near the convention center and today’s scheduled signing ceremony, Lt. Col. Randy Lane, an Army officer at the scene Sunday, said that “some people are definitely trying to stop a new Iraq from emerging.”

Lane said the coalition was not able to immediately determine the attackers’ identities. After the assault, troops hurried out of the Green Zone to investigate. Two rockets in a nine-rocket launcher mounted on the back of the SUV did not launch, and the vehicle caught fire.

Lane declined to say whether any occupants of the SUV had been captured.

Five of the rockets hit the Al Rashid, an 18-story government-owned hotel once deemed the best in Baghdad. The building was used last year to house hundreds of U.S. military and civilian officials until it was largely vacated after a rocket assault in late October that killed one military officer and wounded at least 17 people.

However, the hotel’s dining facilities continued to be used by the coalition, and some private foreign contractors had moved back in. It is off-limits to ordinary Iraqis.

Within minutes of Sunday evening’s attack, Iraqis gathered on the cordoned-off edge of the Green Zone, concerned that their relatives working inside might have been hurt.

Hussein Naim, 41, a minivan driver, said he rushed down to make sure his son was all right after hearing about the attacks on television.

“It’s very hard for us to have to live like this,” he said.

Naim said he hoped the signing of the constitution wouldn’t lead to more attacks.

Bremer said Sunday there was no simple strategy for stopping attacks.

“What we have to do is get better intelligence against these terrorists and go out and capture or kill them before they kill again. And that’s one of the main thrusts we’ve got -- plus doing better on [controlling] the borders.”