Unyielding Sunnis May Be Overruled

The stalemate over an Iraqi constitution continued Friday without agreement, after Shiite Arab negotiators presented a compromise proposal on regional autonomy to Sunni Arabs in what was described as a final attempt to gain their approval.

Several Iraqi leaders indicated that the current wording would be placed before Iraqi voters in an Oct. 15 national referendum whether or not Sunni representatives approve.

“This draft must be presented to the people,” government spokesman Laith Kubba told Al Arabiya news channel early today.

The outlook for a last-minute consensus appeared bleak.

“If you would think that all the Sunni Arabs on the constitutional drafting committee would say, ‘OK, we agree with the others’ ... I think this is an illusion,” Kubba said. “I think that consensus is almost impossible.”

Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Arab and secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party, told the news channel, “The suggestions do not reach the minimum of our ambitions.”

Sunni Arab representatives have until Sunday to respond, and officials said that one way or another, the draft would be officially presented to the National Assembly on that day.

As the negotiations dragged on Friday, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in protest. Some of the demonstrations were directly related to the constitution; others called for improved electricity and water service and, in one case, the return of Saddam Hussein.

Followers of populist Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr marched through Baghdad and Basra with placards reading, “Water, Electricity and Gasoline Are Our Simplest Needs.”

In Baqubah, a center of frequent insurgent violence and sectarian tension, about 3,000 demonstrators carried posters of Hussein and scrawled slogans on the ground including, “This is an American Jewish Iranian constitution.”

And in the northern Iraqi city of Qaraqosh, more than 500 Christian demonstrators protested a perceived slight in the proposed constitution’s wording.

The developments over the constitution Friday remained shrouded in the now-familiar confusion and uncertainty that has largely characterized weeks of negotiations over the crucial document.

After midnight, state television broadcast news of an agreement, quickly denied by government officials.

“It’s not true,” transitional National Assembly Speaker Hachim Hassani told The Times as Al Iraqiya channel announced an accord.

The channel offered congratulations to the Iraqi people and showed stock footage of Iraqis celebrating previous announcements of the much-delayed constitutional draft.

The compromise offered Friday, according to Kurdish negotiator Mahmoud Othman, would enshrine the right of Iraqi provinces to form semiautonomous regions but defer discussions of how they may do so.

The Kurds have held de facto autonomy in provinces in northern Iraq for more than a decade, and Shiites are seeking semi-independence in the oil-rich southern region they dominate. Sunni Arabs, a minority that held power during Hussein’s reign, have strongly opposed such plans and fought to remove language in the constitution condemning the Baath Party and Hussein, whose government long oppressed the Kurds and Shiites.

The Shiites, who represent a majority of Iraq’s population, have come under intense U.S. pressure to find a solution acceptable to Sunnis -- including a phone call from President Bush on Thursday to top Shiite leader Abdelaziz Hakim in Baghdad.

“You could say they’ve come halfway,” Othman said.

Sunni rejection of the revisions would set the stage for Shiites and ethnic Kurds to use their parliamentary majority to approve the document and present it to the Iraqi people in an Oct. 15 referendum.

But a concerted Sunni campaign to defeat the constitution by rallying two-thirds “no” votes in three provinces is certain to further polarize this tense and weary nation. It could also spark a renewed wave of insurgent violence, which has increased this week after a relative lull.

Searching for an optimistic note, Hassani said, “We are hoping that there will be hope.”

Despite the tensions on display Friday, many Iraqis said they understood the slow pace of negotiations and understood the momentous task confronting the constitution’s framers. A constitution was due to be drafted by Aug. 15, but negotiators approved a one-week extension and have since postponed a decision several times.

“This delay is in our interest,” said Hussam Mohammed Salah, a 58-year-old engineer, after prayers at Baghdad’s Bratha mosque, a Shiite flagship. “It is better than incompleteness. This is a constitution. It is the code of life. It must be accurately drafted, and all parties must be satisfied.”

Religious leaders also urged patience from the pulpit, calling for negotiators not to rush adoption of a constitution that could further divide Iraqis along sectarian lines and fracture the country.

“Why are we in a hurry while we want to decide the nation’s destiny?” asked Sheik Mahmoud Sumaidaie of Baghdad’s Sunni hard-line Umm Al Qurra mosque. “My call to those working on the constitution and to everyone is to put God’s rulings among us ... and to take their time in determining the nation’s destiny.”

Reading a newspaper behind his roadside soda stand in Baghdad’s Jadriya neighborhood Friday afternoon, Abdul Khaliq Abbas said he had stayed up until 2 in the morning to see if there had been a breakthrough on the constitution.

“Of course, there are many things that are more important,” Abbas said, ticking off the debilitating lack of water, electricity and other basic services in the Iraqi capital.

“But to be honest, I don’t think we will ever have these things unless we have a strong constitution,” he added.

Others, however, expressed deepening frustration and dimming hopes that the constitutional process would deliver relief from the three years of conflict and instability.

“It’s useless. Why should I follow what [the negotiators] are doing?” asked Ali Abu Karar, sitting with his family on a dusty, garbage-strewn corner outside a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad. “We’ve had three years of occupation and things are just getting worse. There is no water, no electricity, no security. We have given up.”

Some bemoaned a political process that is widening ethnic and religious divisions in the country rather than bridging them. At the Al Huda girls’ school, just over the Tigris River from the fortress-like Green Zone, where the negotiations are taking place, Suad Makiya bitterly denounced the country’s leaders.

“Why,” the chemistry teacher asked angrily, “do they always focus on sectarian issues?”

That frustration was on public display Friday as demonstrators around the country braved blazing August temperatures to express their discontent.

Tens of thousands of Sadr’s followers, many of whom are among the country’s poorest citizens, marched through the Shiite strongholds of Basra and Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood.

A fierce critic of the U.S. occupation, Sadr led an uprising against U.S. forces in the Shiite holy city of Najaf last August. More recently, he has emerged as a potential key player in the country’s constitutional drama and the most prominent Shiite opponent of federalism.

A young firebrand whose father and uncle were killed by Hussein’s government, Sadr remains a wild card. He characterizes the pro-federalism stance of his fellow Shiite leaders as an Iranian-backed push to dismember Iraq. But he hasn’t said whether he would defy those leaders by joining the Sunni campaign to defeat the constitution.

On Friday, Sadr’s supporters focused their protest on the lack of reliable water and electricity service throughout the country.

“We demand that the government fulfill its promises to the people to improve the public services,” said Sadr spokesman Abdul Hadi Daraji.

On the other side of Iraq’s religious divide, former Baath Party members and Iraqi military officers gathered at the site of a former Hussein-era prison in Baqubah before marching through town chanting pro-Hussein slogans and denouncing Iran and the United States.

The demonstration turned violent and was broken up when some marchers started shooting at police, wounding an officer in the neck, said Iraqi police Maj. Walid Fatah.

Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Shamil Aziz in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.