Shiites offer what they say is final compromise

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- With Iraq's constitutional talks at a decisive stage, the majority Shiites awaited a response Friday from Sunni Arabs to what they said was a final compromise offer to break the impasse over the draft charter. U.S. aircraft struck a suspected al-Qaida safe house near the Syrian border.

The Shiite compromise involved delaying two key issues -- federalism and purging former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from the government and public life. The Sunnis had asked that decisions on both issues be delayed until a new parliament is elected in December, but it was unclear whether the Shiite offer was detailed enough to satisfy Sunni demands.

About 5,000 Sunnis, some carrying Saddam's picture, marched in the central city of Baqouba to protest the draft constitution.

The Shiites submitted the proposal after the personal intervention of President Bush, who faces rising criticism from the U.S. public and his own party about the conduct of the Iraq war.

Bush's overture, made in a telephone call to a top Shiite leader, did little to calm the increasingly strident rhetoric. A process designed to bring Iraq's disparate communities together appeared to be tearing them apart.

News conference canceled

Parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani canceled a planned news conference expected before midnight Friday as meetings with Sunni Arab negotiators were underway. Muhannad Jabbar, spokesman for the speaker, instructed a television crew to shut down for the night.

Shiite negotiator Jawad al-Maliki reported progress in talks Friday with the Sunni Arabs and Kurds on federalism but problems on the Shiite proposal about the fate of Baath party members. Shiites had been complaining privately that the Sunnis were stalling.

At stake is a political process that the United States hopes will in time curb the Sunni-dominated insurgency, and along with a better-trained and equipped Iraqi security force, enable the Americans and their international partners to begin bringing home their troops next year.

With falling poll numbers, the White House needs to show something positive from Iraq to counter the depressing litany of car bombings, assassinations and American battle deaths.

"We will not be easy with this point at all," al-Maliki said. He said the Sunnis were being tough in defending the rights of former Baath party members and "it is regrettable to us that the Sunnis and the Baath are in the same pot."

Sunni negotiator Kamal Hamdoun said only that he and his Sunni colleagues were "studying the suggestions that we received" and may respond Saturday.

Another Sunni representative complained the Shiites were ignoring them.

"They are sending us letters as if we are living in two different countries," Saleh al-Mutlaq said.

Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said the current draft, submitted to parliament last Monday over Sunni objections, was written by Shiites and Kurds but that the country needs a constitution "that keeps the unity of Iraqi soil and gives rights to all Iraqis."

At stake is a political process that the United States hopes will in time curb the Sunni-dominated insurgency, and along with a better-trained and equipped Iraqi security force, enable the Americans and their international partners to begin bringing home their troops next year.

With more than 1,800 U.S. deaths since the war began in 2003 and falling poll numbers, the White House needs to show something positive from Iraq to counter the depressing litany of car bombings, assassinations and American battle deaths.

As the haggling continued in Baghdad, U.S. warjets launched multiple airstrikes Friday against a suspected "terrorist safe house" in the western Anbar province, destroying the building where up to 50 militants were believed to be hiding, the U.S. military said.

Two Marine F-18D Hornet jets destroyed the building with precision-guided bombs and rockets after local residents said members of the terror group Al-Qaida in Iraq were inside in the town of Husaybah near the Syrian border about 200 miles west of Baghdad.

The group is led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the second most-wanted terrorist on the U.S. list after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The White House confirmed that Bush telephoned a top Shiite leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, and Shiite officials said the president urged them to make compromises with the Sunnis in the interest of national unity.

But the protracted negotiations appear to have already widened the gaps among the country's religious and ethnic groups.

In offering concessions on the pivotal issues of federalism and Baath Party members, Shiite negotiator Abbas al-Bayati said: "We cannot offer more than that."

According to al-Bayati, the Shiites had proposed that the parliament expected to be elected in December be given the right to issue a law on the mechanism of implementing federalism and to set a timetable for the work of the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification.

He gave no further details. Sunnis had insisted that both issues be deferred to the next parliament, in which they hope to have more members. Sunni Arabs form an estimated 20 percent of the 27 million population but won only 17 of the 275 parliament seats because so many Sunnis boycotted the Jan. 30 election.

It was unclear if the proposals as offered would be enough to persuade the Sunnis to approve the charter. Unlike their Shiite and Kurdish partners, the Sunni Arab delegates are not elected officials but were appointed by community leaders and may lack negotiating room.

Some Sunni clerics also have condemned as anti-Islamic parts of the document their own negotiators have tacitly accepted. Sunni leaders have complained of job discrimination by the Shiite-dominated government as well as arbitrary arrests and killings of Sunnis by Shiite-led security services.

Shiites have made similar allegations, including claims that Sunni extremists have threatened Shiite farmers with of Baghdad with death if they do not leave their homes.

Sadoun Zubaydi, a Sunni member of the drafting committee, said he did not expect an end to the constitutional impasse soon and blamed the Americans for interfering in what was supposed to be an Iraqi process.

"Bush's hypocrisy is huge -- in January he wouldn't allow a postponement of parliamentary elections to allow all groups to prepare properly because he was trying to sugarcoat everything that happens here for his domestic audience," Zubaydi said.

"Now, he's calling the Shiites and issuing instructions that they should not ignore the group that was marginalized in those defective elections. ... To the last minute, this supposedly Iraqi process is being dictated by the U.S. government."

The constitution provides for a federal state, one in which provinces would have significant powers in contrast to Saddam's regime in which Sunnis dominated a strong central government.

The charter will allow any number of provinces to combine and form a federal state with broader powers. The Sunnis have demanded a limit of three provinces, the number the Kurds have in their self-ruled region in the north. The Sunnis have publicly accepted the continued existence of the Kurdish regional administration but within its current boundaries.

Without limits, Sunnis fear not only a giant Shiite state in the south but also future bids by the Kurds to expand their region into northern oil-producing areas, as they have demanded. That would leave the Sunnis cut off from Iraq's oil wealth in the north and south. More than a million Sunni Arabs live in areas dominated by Shiites.

"Don't follow constitutions of the infidels," influential Sunni cleric Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidaei told the congregation Friday at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque. "We don't want a constitution that brings the curse of separation and division to this country."

Sunni Arabs also resent attempts to ban former Baath Party members from government posts or political life, feeling that would deprive them of livelihood in the new Iraq and prevent the country from using the talents of thousands of professors, senior executives and others who joined the organization to advance their careers.

However, Shiites suffered under Saddam, and hatred for his Baath party runs deep. A move by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, to quietly reinstate some former Baath members in the security services cost him considerable Shiite support, and his party fared poorly in the election.