The Militant - July 25, 2005 -- U.S.-backed Iraqi regime seeks to draw in Sunnis

Vol. 69/No. 28 July 25, 2005

U.S.-backed Iraqi regime seeks to draw in Sunnis

BY SAM MANUEL
WASHINGTON—The U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad has approved the addition of 15 prominent political figures who are Sunni Arabs to the committee drafting Iraq’s new constitution. At least two of these have publicly expressed support for the formerly ruling Baath Party. In response to the additions to the constitutional committee, two influential Sunni Arab-based organizations have called on Sunnis to vote in upcoming elections to ratify the constitution. The developments register the continued progress by Washington in its goal of a stable U.S.-dominated government in Iraq.

At the same time, Iraqi politicians who are Kurdish, among them Iraq’s current president, have sharply condemned Baghdad's delay in implementing a law that would allow the return to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk of tens of thousands of Kurds who had been driven from the area under the Saddam Hussein regime. The tensions between the Kurdish electoral bloc and its coalition partner, the United Iraqi Alliance, over the status of Kirkuk threaten the relative stability of the government.

Role of Sunnis
Hussein’s Iraqi Baath Party, which dominated Iraq for decades, established a base of support among wealthy Sunni Arabs, who received privileged treatment, while the Shiite Muslim majority was subjected to second-class citizenship. Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, bourgeois forces led by Sunnis have been the backbone of financing and organizing armed attacks on U.S. and Iraqi security forces. They largely boycotted the January 30 elections, resulting in only 17 politicians who are Sunni Arab being elected to the 275-member National Assembly. Just two were on the 55-member constitutional committee. Washington has pressed the government to include more, in order to give the regime and the constitution more legitimacy and undercut opposition among Sunnis.

Two of the 15 Sunnis proposed for the constitutional committee have expressed support for the former ruling party. “I still see the Baath Party as the best party we have seen,” said Saleh Mutlak, a soil scientist who made his fortune in agriculture during the Hussein regime, quoted in the July 1 New York Times. He said he was expelled from the Baath Party in the 1970s for opposing government policies.

“I really believe in the Baath Party,” Kamal Hamdoun, the head of the Iraq Bar Association, told the Times. Hamdoun said he held no significant posts in the party or the Hussein government but was a member of parliament for eight years. Iraqi critics of the nominees charged that two other Sunni figures, Mijbel Sheik Isa and Haseeb Aref, are former Baath Party officials, a charge they deny.

Humam Hamoudi, head of the constitutional committee, said the committee had concluded that having Sunni participation in writing the constitution was more important than any alleged questionable background.

The new “permanent” constitution is supposed to be drafted by August 15 and submitted to an October referendum, leading to national elections in December.

Leaders of the Sunni Endowment, a government agency responsible for Sunni affairs, said July 4 that several prominent Sunni clerics had decided to issue a religious edict, or fatwa, calling on Sunnis to register and vote in upcoming elections, according to press reports. The Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party backed the call for Sunnis to vote. Earlier, that party had quit the interim government of prime minister Iyad Allawi in protest against the U.S. ground offensive against Baathist strongholds in Fallujah last November.

In related news, a leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni clerical group, condemned the recent kidnapping and armed assaults on diplomats from Arab countries that have established relations with Baghdad. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for kidnapping and executing Egypt's diplomat to Baghdad, Ihab al-Sharif.

Kurds press for control of Kirkuk
Leading Kurdish political figures, among them Iraq’s current president, have sharply condemned Baghdad's delay in implementing a law that would ensure their control of Kirkuk. Article 58 of the Transitional Administrative Law calls for the return to Kirkuk of tens of thousands of Kurds forcibly removed from the city and surrounding province under the “Arabization” policy of the Hussein regime. The policy was aimed at ensuring Baathist control of the region and its oil reserves.

The two main Kurdish parties in Iraq say agreement to implement this law before drafting the constitution was central to their agreement to form a coalition government with the United Iraqi Alliance. The Kurdish electoral bloc led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) holds the second-largest number of seats in the National Assembly.

Jalal Talabani, PUK leader and president of Iraq, said Baghdad must implement the law “immediately,” reported Al Jazeera TV. He was joined by KDP leader Masoud Barzani, who is the first elected president of the northern autonomous region known as Iraqi Kurdistan.

Kurdish members of Iraq’s National Assembly have said that if Article 58 is not implemented Kurds might boycott ratification of the constitution.

The law also states that if two-thirds of voters in any three provinces fail to approve the constitution it will be void. Kurds are a majority in the three northern provinces.

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