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As published by MSNBC.com:
Iraqis agree on constitution
Signing expected after religious holiday
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:15 a.m. ET March 01, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi politicians agreed on the draft of an interim constitution early Monday, reaching a compromise on the role of Islam and putting off the details of Kurdish autonomy.
Coalition officials said the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, will sign the new constitution on Wednesday, adding that it includes a comprehensive bill of rights and a strong executive branch.
Members of the Governing Council unanimously approved the new charter, or Transitional Administrative Law, the senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"They believe this is a document that is historic, not only for Iraq, but for the entire region," the official said.
Besides a comprehensive bill of rights, including protections for free speech, religious expression, assembly and due process, it also spells out the executive branch.
Under the terms of the document, Iraq will have a president with two deputies, a prime minister and a cabinet.
Earlier, Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Shiite Muslim council member Ahmad Chalabi, said that council members ended a second late night of negotiations at 4:20 a.m. with "full agreement ... on each article," said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Shiite Muslim council member Ahmad Chalabi.
Rights for all Iraqi citizens
The interim charter will remain in effect until a permanent constitution is drafted and ratified next year. It underlines that the rights of all Iraqi citizens will be respected and sets aside for women 25 percent of the seats in the provisional legislature, Qanbar said.
According to Qanbar, the interim constitution charter will recognize Islam as a major source of legislation and ban any laws which violate the tenets of the Muslim faith. U.S. officials and secular-minded members got their way with the phrase "a source" -- out of many sources -- but the ban on laws that violate Islam was aimed at pleasing conservatives.
Bremer had hinted he would veto conservatives' phrasing setting Islamic law as "the" main basis of law, which some feared would create an Islamic state and restrict women's rights.
There was no comment from Kurdish and hardline Muslim members of the Iraqi Governing Council. However, if they accepted the language, that would remove a major hurdle on the path to a new sovereign Iraqi government taking power on schedule June 30.
About eight of the council's 13 Shiite members stormed out of a meeting on the constitution late Friday in a dispute over Islamic law and the women's rights.
The walkout was prompted by a vote to cancel a resolution that would have made Islamic law the basis for issues like divorce and inheritance. The resolution, pushed through the Governing Council by hard-liners in December, angered many women who feared their rights would be restricted.
Not an Islamic state
The document will likely be signed Wednesday, after the Shiite Muslim religious holiday of Ashoura ends, said Qanbar, of the Iraqi National Congress. Bremer must then sign the document.
"There was an agreement among all council members that Iraq will not be an Islamic state," Qanbar said. "The language was put in a way not to offend the Islamic identity of most of the people but nor to offend the other side and give the impression that it's an Islamic state."
The deal came two days after a deadline for finishing the document -- a key part of the U.S. plan for handing over power to the Iraqis on June 30. Saturday's deadline had been set by the Americans and agreed to by the Governing Council in November. When it passed with the council still deeply divided, Bremer helped organize marathon talks.
The members, however, appeared to have been unable to agree on the terms and size of the Kurdish self-rule region in the north. Kurdish leaders had demanded the right to keep their peshmerga militia as a distinct armed force and to control oil and other resources in their region. They also sought to add districts to the autonomous area.
Qanbar said the final version accepts the principle of federalism throughout Iraq and allows the current Kurdish autonomy government to continue "under a united Iraq."
But it leaves it up to a future elected national assembly to decide the details of self-rule for the Kurdish minority, Qanbar said. Shiites, who dominate southern Iraq, insisted that if the Kurds had the right to self-rule in their northern strongholds, Shiites should enjoy the same privilege in areas of the south where they predominate.
"The atmosphere was very constructive," he said of the long negotiations. "Alternative language and creative ways were brought to the table to come out with consensus on each issue."
Stepped-up security
Meanwhile, Polish soldiers sprayed a bus with gunfire after it crashed into a checkpoint outside the holy city of Karbala, where Shiite Muslims are holding their most important festival of the year.
Eight Iranian pilgrims, an Iraqi civil defense trooper and a Pole were injured, police and emergency officials said. But Polish officials denied there were any pilgrims in the bus and said they appeared to have thwarted a terrorist attack.
Coalition forces have stepped up security around southern cities during the Ashoura festival, as 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims — including about 100,000 Iranians — converge on the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf. The festival marks the death of Imam Hussein, a Shiite saint and grandson of the prophet Muhammad.
The bus, apparently having brake troubles, hit a minivan and swerved into a concrete barrier at the checkpoint manned by Polish and Iraqi security forces, witnesses said. Polish troops apparently thought the speeding vehicle was making a suicide attack. Bloodied bodies were seen being taken out of the bus, riddled with bullets.
Further south, U.S. soldiers fired on a car that failed to stop when a military convoy passed by, killing one Iraqi and critically injuring another near Rumaythah, 135 miles south of Baghdad.
Afterward, hundreds of Iraqis gathered at the site, chanting “Down with America! Down with Bush!” and pelting U.S. soldiers and Dutch marines with rocks.
In northwest Baghdad, a homemade bomb exploded, killing an Estonian soldier. He was the first Estonian soldier killed by hostile fire since the country gained independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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