The New York Times
Published: September 7, 2006
BAGHDAD Shiite lawmakers are pushing ahead with legislation that would provide a mechanism to carve Iraq into largely autonomous regions, angering some Sunni Arab lawmakers who say Shiites should first follow through on a promise to allow the issue of federalism to be renegotiated.
To win Sunnis over, Shiites representatives changed the charter so Parliament could later decide whether to narrow those provisions.
Now, lawmakers from Hakim's party are backing legislation that would define the process for breaking the country into autonomous regions. Shiite representatives say the proposal would not set that process in motion, and that they are merely trying to meet a constitutional deadline for defining it.
But some Sunni leaders say the Shiites should first allow debate on amending the Constitution. The new proposal "is an obstacle to the national reconciliation," said Dhafir al-Ani, a member of the Sunni bloc in Parliament. "This draft could be presented after amending the Constitution."
Saleh Mutlak, an outspoken Sunni lawmaker, said Shiite lawmakers should instead focus on the country's fragile economy and security.
"These people should take care of these things, not federalism," he said.
"The government is disintegrating and there is no other power except the militias."
Hakim has previously said he has no intention of changing the federalist provisions. Nevertheless, Ridha Jawad Taki, a senior member of Hakim's party, insisted that Shiites were still open to debating the provisions. It may be one or two years before anyone starts the actual process of creating an autonomous region, Taki said in an interview.
"Right now, we are making a mechanism and procedure for the Iraqi people in the provinces to make use of this right in the Constitution," he said.
Other Shiite parties in Parliament say they favor a slower path toward creating federal territories. Nasir al-Saadi, a member of the bloc loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said he did not object to creating a mechanism for carving the country into regions.
But he said it would be a long time before the country was ready to do that and that it should not happen until the "occupation" had ended.
"This isn't the time to implement federalism," he said.
Hassan al-Shimiri, a member of Fadhila, another Shiite party, was also cautious. Within the dominant Shiite governing coalition, he said, "there are many blocs that still have reservations about the activation of federalism."
Some lawmakers worry there is a limited amount of time to bring Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish politicians together. The speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, an outspoken and controversial Sunni Arab, warned the chamber on Wednesday that Iraq's sectarian factions may have only a few months to do resolve their differences.
"Let's start talking the same language," Mashhadani told lawmakers, according to Reuters. "We have three to four months to reconcile with each other. If the country doesn't survive this, it will go under."
Lawmakers on Wednesday also approved a measure that would allow private companies to import gasoline into Iraq, a proposal designed to ease the country's perpetual fuel shortages.
Sectarian executions and other violence continued Wednesday.
News services reported that as many as 60 Iraqis were killed or found murdered throughout the country. Such tallies, however, have proven to understate death tolls.
Iraqi officials also announced that 27 "terrorists" had been executed in Baghdad for crimes of rape and murder.
On Wednesday, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Major General William Caldwell 4th, said now that last-minute "technical" details had been hammered out, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, would assume control of the Iraqi armed forces on Thursday.
"Tomorrow is gigantic," Caldwell said. "It's the one event that puts the prime minister directly in the operational control of his military forces."
However, initially that control will be limited. In addition to Iraq's nascent air and naval forces, Maliki will be assuming control of only one Iraqi Army division Thursday, Caldwell said. Control of other divisions will be handed over at a rate of perhaps two per month, he said.
Caldwell also said that the announcement of the June 19 arrest of Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi, No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was delayed so Iraqi and U.S. forces could take advantage of information Saeedi disclosed to interrogators, he said.
Questions also remain about Saeedi's exact role in Al Qaeda. U.S. officials have downplayed Iraqi assertions that he was the second-ranking official in the terror group.
U.S. officials say Saeedi supervised the insurgent who led the bombing of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra last February, an attack that set off a spasm of sectarian killings that continue to this day.
But it remains unclear what role Saeedi played in that attack, and U.S. officials have not said whether Saeedi ordered or planned the bombing.
Khalid W. Hassan and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting for this articl