Iraqi Sandstorm Delays Meeting on Constitution

A fierce sandstorm forced Iraqi leaders Monday to delay talks aimed at breaking a deadlock over drafting the constitution, which has an Aug. 15 deadline.

President Jalal Talabani had been scheduled to hold a second day of talks among Iraqi leaders Monday to try to resolve volatile issues such as regional autonomy and control of oil revenue.

But a sandstorm whipped up by a rare air pressure system over Iraq’s western desert smothered Baghdad in sand and dust, reducing visibility to 50 yards or less in some areas and clearing roads of traffic.

The few who dared venture out did so with face masks or wet cloths over their noses and mouths. Hospital emergency wards were packed with people with breathing problems.

A government statement said the poor weather had forced a delay in further talks until today.

The Shiite-led interim government and its U.S. sponsors say pressing on with the political process that began with an election in January will defuse the insurgency among the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Hussein is scheduled to go on trial within two months on charges related to the mass killing of Shiite Muslim villagers in 1982, a judge said Monday. The 150 men in the village of Dujayl were killed after an attempt on the Iraqi leader’s life.

Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla leader, was optimistic about reaching a resolution on the constitution but acknowledged that with all the competing groups, it might not be easy. “We are determined to go on meeting until we find a resolution to all our disputes,” he said after Sunday’s talks.

Defying Islamic militant warnings that Sunni Muslims participating in politics risk death, influential Sunni Arab officials have joined the constitution-drafting committee and Sunni leaders are taking part in Talabani’s talks. However, some hard-core Sunni insurgents have vowed to keep fighting.

At the same time, poor Shiites who expected a better future after the fall of Hussein’s government still complain of high unemployment, poor services and crime.

Their frustrations boiled over in the southern city of Samawah on Sunday. Hundreds of people protested poor services outside the governor’s office and called for his resignation. Police opened fire on the crowd, killing one man and wounding about 40 people.

On Monday, as masked men exchanged rocket and rifle fire with police in parts of Samawah and most shops stayed closed, a representative of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr told Reuters that protests would continue until the governor resigned and local services in Samawah improved.

Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia rose up against U.S. and British forces twice last year. He is one of the key players in the south, where Shiite rivalries are intensifying ahead of new elections due in December if a constitution is adopted.

“We must deal with protests in a new way,” Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari told provincial leaders Monday.

“Protests are a natural right ... and the protesters have a right to say they don’t want certain officials. This is a new right in the new Iraq and we must preserve it.”

The United States has called on Iraqi leaders to settle their disputes quickly.

Talabani, aware that many Iraqis believe the United States is still running the country more than two years after it invaded, insists that the Americans are not exerting pressure.

“There is no pressure at all, there are consultations,” he said. “The Americans are making efforts to narrow the differences.”

Washington hopes Iraq’s leaders can unite and defeat the insurgency so that many of its 140,000 troops can go home.

However, the Pentagon said Monday that the United States planned to raise troop levels in Iraq to bolster security for the planned October constitutional referendum and December elections for a new government.

Planning for a short-term bulge in troop levels comes as U.S. commanders, according to defense officials, also are working toward cutting the current force by 20,000 to 30,000 troops next year, contingent on progress in Iraq’s political process and in developing Iraqi security forces.