BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Iraq's Governing Council signed a landmark interim constitution on Monday that establishes a framework for democratic self-rule after the U.S. civil occupation ends this summer.
"This is a great and historic day for Iraq," said council member Adnan Pachachi, one of the key architects of the charter. "We have produced a document we can justly be proud of."
The signing was also hailed by President Bush, who issued a statement calling it "a historic milestone in the Iraqi people's long journey from tyranny and violence to liberty and peace."
But Iraq's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric promptly criticized the new interim constitution, saying it would impede the drafting of a permanent charter.
"This [law] places obstacles to arriving at a permanent constitution for the country that preserves its unity and the rights of its people, in all their ethnicities and sects," Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said in a statement. He also underscored the importance of holding elections and cautioned against relying too much on interim measures until then. "Any law prepared for the transitional period will not have legitimacy until it is approved by the elected national assembly," Sistani said in the statement.
The comments came after five Shiite Muslim politicians who had refused to sign the document on Friday dropped their objections and scrawled their signatures today, along with the council's 20 other members, on a poster-sized copy of the charter's preamble placed on an antique desk once owned by King Faisal I, Iraq's first monarch. But the five, along with seven other Shiite members of the council, issued a statement immediately after the signing indicating they would seek to amend the document in the coming months to impose the last-minute changes they had sought.
"Our signature is linked to our reservations . . . which must be addressed in the future," said council member Ahmed Chalabi, one of the five Shiite dissenters.
The Shiite statement suggested that the image of Iraqi harmony the council and the U.S. occupation authority attempted to portray through the signing ceremony -- with members representing the country's disparate religious and ethnic groups walking up one by one to put their names to the document -- may not be as firm as it appeared.
"There is no doubt that this document will strengthen Iraqi unity in a way never seen before," Kurdish leader and council member Massoud Barzani proclaimed in an introductory speech. "This is the first time that we Kurds feel that we are citizens of Iraq."
Less than a half-hour after he spoke, however, Shiite politicians said they would attempt to reopen discussion on various parts of the charter.
"Our objections are still there," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a senior leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a large Shiite party. "There is a mistake in some of the articles. We're not talking about principles, but we have some problems with certain mechanisms and we have to fix them."
Leaders of Iraq's Shiites, who constitute about 60 percent of the population, oppose two key elements of the document: a provision that effectively gives minority ethnic Kurds veto power over a permanent constitution and another that would allow either of two deputy presidents, likely a Kurd and a Sunni Arab, to reject decisions of a Shiite president.
Shiite politicians said objections to those provisions were raised by Sistani, the country's top Shiite cleric. A delegation of Shiite political leaders met with Sistani on Sunday in an attempt to work out a compromise. But with Kurdish leaders unwilling to budge, Sistani and the Shiite leaders agreed to back the document and seek changes later, Abdel-Mehdi said.
"We decided that it's much more important to preserve Iraqi unity and push the whole political process forward," he said.
The Shiites want to delete a clause in the interim charter that says a permanent constitution would not go into effect if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces reject it, even if the document receives a nationwide majority. Because ethnic Kurds control three provinces in the north, the provision would effectively give the Kurds the ability to scuttle a constitution.
The Kurds regard the provision as an insurance policy of sorts that would prevent a Shiite majority from dictating the terms of the constitution, which is supposed to be written next year by an elected transitional assembly. Shiite leaders wanted the provision expunged on the grounds that it would give the Kurds, who comprise about 20 percent of the country's population, the chance to interfere with the will of a Shiite majority.
Abdel-Mehdi said Shiite council members would seek to amend the clause in an addendum to the interim constitution that is expected to be issued next month to decide the shape and functions of an interim government that will assume sovereignty on June 30.
Although the U.S.-led occupation authority is set to transfer political power that day, it is likely to maintain a military presence in Iraq for years to come.
In a statement issued today from Texas, where Bush is on a fundraising trip for his reelection campaign, the president congratulated the Iraqi Governing Council on taking "an important step toward the establishment of a sovereign government on June 30."
Bush's statement added: "This law provides a framework for continued cooperation among Iraq, members of the international coalition and the United Nations as the Iraqi people make progress towards democracy. And it provides the essential freedoms and rights to all Iraqis regardless of gender, religion or ethnic origin -- including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, the right to a fair trial and the right to choose their own representatives."
The interim constitution approved on Monday calls for elections to be held by the end of January 2005 to select a 275-member transitional assembly. That group will serve as a legislature, draft a constitution and choose the president and two deputy presidents. The presidents, in turn, will select a prime minister and a cabinet to run the government. The transitional government will remain in power until a permanent constitution is approved in a national referendum and new elections are held.
U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told the council in a private session before the ceremony began that "we are witnessing the birth of democracy, and birth is painful, as we've learned over the last few evenings," according to a pool report.
The interim constitution includes a 13-article bill of rights that provides broad protections for individual liberties, guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly, religion and other rights long denied by former president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party government.
The charter declares Islam to be "the official religion of the state," but only "a source" of legislation. In an apparent effort to placate conservative Shiites while providing protections against religious domination, the document states that legislation cannot be enacted during the transition that infringes upon the "universally agreed upon tenets of Islam," but also that legislation cannot contradict any of the rights stipulated in the bill of rights.
About an hour before the signing ceremony began, insurgents fired mortar shells at two police stations in central Baghdad, injuring four people, including one policeman, Iraqi officials said.
Washington Post staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report from Washington. |
