Last-ditch attempts to rescue Iraq’s political process appeared to have collapsed on Saturday when negotiations over a new Constitution acceptable to all three major communities ended in failure and disarray.
As Sunni negotiators accused the Shia and Kurdish coalition of failing to make any movement towards consensus — effectively rejecting the draft document — officials from the Shia-dominated government insisted the talks over the long-delayed document were complete and that it would be presented to the Iraqi Parliament for ratification on Sunday.
The apparent steam-rollering of Sunni objections after marathon talks ended on Saturday led to Sunni claims that the failure of the talks had brought the country another step closer to civil war.
The document that will be presented to Iraqi MPs on Sunday will include controversial provisions backed by Shias and Kurds for endorsing a federal structure and the purging of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, a move which is fiercely opposed by Sunnis. Sunni negotiators announced after the talks collapsed that they now intend to present a rival Constitution, escalating the sense of political crisis.
Sunnis, who are concentrated in central Iraq, fear a federal structure would deliver the country’s oil wealth to the Shia and Kurdish communities, who live mostly in the mineral-rich areas in the south and north. They are also fiercely opposed to measures to purge members of the Baath party, which they see as an anti-Sunni strategy.
The decision by the Shias and Kurds to go ahead without Sunni support has shredded the Bush administration’s strategy of using the Constitution to lure disaffected Sunnis away from the insurgency and into mainstream politics.
The collapse of the negotiations comes as The Observer can reveal that senior US and British officials, including the countries’ ambassadors in Iraq and senior military commanders, have been engaged in talks with senior Iraqi government officials to draw up the agreed security and political conditions that would trigger the gradual withdrawal of multinational forces.
The committee, which began meeting in the last few weeks, is expected to present a document in the autumn laying out conditions for a future staged withdrawal, beginning perhaps as early as summer 2006.
However, the mounting political crisis would appear to scupper any hopes of an early withdrawal.
Despite attempts to put an optimistic gloss on the talks, the failure of Iraqi politicians from the three main groups to reach any kind of consensus has been greeted with dismay in Washington and London, where it had been hoped that President George Bush’s intervention last week to persuade the Shias to accommodate the Sunnis’ concerns would break the deadlock.
Underlining the Sunni worries, four Sunni Arab Cabinet ministers and one Sunni deputy prime minister on Saturday night expressed serious reservations about the draft Constitution, citing 13 points that they said need amending.
The deepening sense of political crisis over Iraq came as Bush asked Americans on Saturday to be patient with the US military mission in Iraq, a request issued amid growing America anti-war feeling.
”Iraqis are working to build a free nation that contributes to peace and stability in the region, and we will help them succeed,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.
”Like our own nation’s founders over two centuries ago, the Iraqis are grappling with difficult issues.
”What is important is that Iraq is addressing these issues through debate and discussion — not at the barrel of a gun,” Bush added. – Guardian Unlimited Â