Top Iraq cleric gives approval to constitution

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's most powerful cleric signaled to Shiite leaders that he won't object to an interim constitution, clearing the way for the charter to be signed today without changes.

The agreement, key to U.S. plans to hand power to Iraqis, comes after talks between Iraqi Governing Council members and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who had reservations about giving Iraq's Kurdish minority too much power.

Shiite politicians, who days earlier had refused to sign the constitution because of al-Sistani's opposition to certain clauses, said after talks with the cleric Sunday that they would sign the document unchanged.

Even if the charter is signed, the fallout from the political crisis remains. The squabble exacerbated sectarian tensions and reinforced fears of Shiite domination by the Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities, politicians and observers said. Shiite politicians say they are motivated by a genuine concern to build Iraq's democracy on a sound basis.

"To say that the Shiite religious leadership is now meddling in politics is to understate the case," said senior politician Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, a Sunni Arab on Iraq's Governing Council. "The majority must not be allowed to usurp the rights of others."

The crisis over the constitution started when five of the council's 13 Shiite members balked at signing the draft they and the rest of the council had agreed to days earlier -- scuttling an elaborate ceremony laid out Friday by the U.S.-led coalition and handing Washington an acute embarrassment.

Two days of intensive talks between the five and al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf resolved the impasse.

"Sistani has reservations, but it will not constitute an obstacle," said Mohammed Hussein Bahr al-Ulloum, who helped coordinate the talks on behalf of his father, council president Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum. "It will be signed as it was agreed upon before by the Governing Council members."

Top U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer was more guarded.

"We're certainly hopeful that, as the president of the council said, we're going to sign it tomorrow," he told "Fox News Sunday" in an interview.

"A number of people who had been out of town have not yet come back, and I'm sure they will want to talk among themselves and talk to the other members of the governing council," Bremer said. "We'll have to see how that goes tomorrow."

Such uncertainties were not surprising, he said.

"You've got people in Iraq who have never experienced democracy, and they're wrestling with some of the big issues of democracy. Democracy's not just about majority rule -- it is about protecting minority rights," Bremer said.

The adoption of an interim constitution is a key step in the U.S.-backed plan to hand power to the Iraqis on June 30, a date that the Bush administration is keen to keep during an election year in the United States.

The transfer will gradually bring Iraqis into a bigger role in the fight against insurgents, thus reducing U.S. casualties. The military reported Sunday the death of the 551st American soldier since the Iraq war broke out nearly a year ago.

The disputed clause in the interim charter gives Kurds and Sunni Arabs -- who together make up 30 to 40 percent of Iraq's 25 million people -- the voting power to veto a permanent constitution.

The Shiites, as well as the Kurds, were brutally oppressed during Saddam Hussein's 23-year rule. His removal gave the Shiites hope that they can translate their favorable demographics into political power. The Kurds, Washington's closest Iraqi allies, saw Saddam's ouster as a chance to enshrine their 13-year-old autonomy in Kurdish regions in the north.

But the Shiites' pursuit of their goal -- and the role of the Shiite clergy -- have irked other Iraqis and enhanced divisions in a society already torn by political uncertainty, the absence of a strong central authority and deadly terror attacks.

Al-Sistani, a 75-year-old Iranian who moved to Iraq's holy Shiite city of Najaf more than 50 years ago, has emerged as the single most powerful leader in post-Saddam Iraq. His earlier objections to two U.S.-backed political blueprints for Iraq had forced Washington to drop them, something that has significantly contributed to his elevated standing among Shiites.