Iraq Watch: August 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The chairman of Iraq's constitutional committee, Sheik Humam Hammoudi, announced late Friday that an 'amended' version of the nations draft constitution has been agreed upon (by Shiites and Kurds) and will be sent to Iraqi parliament on either Saturday or Sunday.

Sunni negotiators and lawmakers said that they had rejected the revised draft charter presented to them earlier on Friday. The decesion to forward the draft constition without a general Sunni endorsement will come as a major blow to the Bush administration. Washington has been pushing hard, with President Bush even calling top Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim late Thursday, to include Sunnis in the Iraqi political process hoping that having them invlolved would weaken the Sunni-led insurgency that has been plaguing the nation and U.S. forces for over two years.

Legally, Iraqi parliament does not have to vote on the proposed charter - as originally planned - but with the majority Shiites and Kurds holding 221 of the 275 seats in parliament the draft constituion would be expected to pass easily despite the Sunnis disapproval if a vote were to take place. The key test for the charter will come October 15 when Iraq is scheduled to have a national referendum on the proposed document.

The draft constitution can be defeated if a simple two-thirds majority in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it. The Sunnis, who form about 20 percent of the nation's total population, are a majority sect in at least four Iraqi provinces.

If the charter were to be defeated in the mid-October referendum Iraq would essentially start the political process over from 'square one'. The current parliament would be dissolved and voting to elect a new one would take place in December. The newly elected government would then start the process of creating a draft constitution once again.

Protests were held against the proposed draft constitution in the predominately Sunni town of Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad. Thousands of people, some holding pictures of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, came out to demonstrate.

Similar mass demonstrations against the new charter and the federalism proposed in it, among other things, occurred in at least eight southern Iraqi cities on Friday. The protests, atteneded by an estimated 100,000 people, were organized by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Violence persisted across the country on Friday, the traditional Muslim day of prayer.

In Baquba, north of Baghdad, two Iraqi policemen were killed when their car was attacked by insurgents.

Also to the north, in Tikrit, one Iraqi soldier was killed and four others wounded when gunmen attacked their army patrol.

A roadside bomb near al-Rashad killed two truck drivers transporting supplies to a nearby military base.

In the capital city itself, a senior Iraqi army officer was gunned down in the southern district of Dora. Also in Baghdad, an oil facility guard was killed and two others injured in a roadside bombing.

Late Friday, the U.S. military announced that it had destroyed a suspected insurgent safe house in Husaybah, near the Syrian border, after receiving tips from local residents.