Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05BAGHDAD2825
2005-07-05 06:26:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Baghdad
Cable title:  

SCIRI LEADER HAKIM OFFERS CHARGE ASSURANCES OF

Tags:  PREL PGOV KDEM KISL IZ IR 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 002825 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/04/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: SCIRI LEADER HAKIM OFFERS CHARGE ASSURANCES OF
FLEXIBILITY ON SUNNI INCLUSION, CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David M. Satterfield for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 002825

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/04/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: SCIRI LEADER HAKIM OFFERS CHARGE ASSURANCES OF
FLEXIBILITY ON SUNNI INCLUSION, CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David M. Satterfield for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The leader of the strongest Shia Islamist
party, SCIRI's Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, promised rapid progress
on Sunni inclusion and offered a moderate vision on an array
of constitutional issues in a July 3 meeting with the Charge.
Hakim and Constitution Committee Chairman Humam al-Hamudi,
also a SCIRI leader, said they have deep suspicions about the
intentions of some of the Sunni nominees. Nonetheless, they
promised the Charge that they would work to see them included
by July 4. Hakim said he supported federalism and thought
the danger of Kurdish secession to be overblown. He laughed
at the tortured debate over Iraq's "Arab" identity,
considering the matter trivial. He said he supported keeping
Iraq's provincial boundaries intact through the constitution
but allowing room for the formation of regional entities that
he expected to trisect the nine provinces in the Shia south.
He confirmed a flexible view on the issue of religion and
state and made clear multiple times that he wanted the
constitution to be produced successfully, flexibly, and with
active U.S. support. Hakim warned that a campaign to kill
Shia leaders was underway and mused over the idea of
establishing public security committees. Charge shot down
that idea flatly, emphasizing U.S. opposition to any militia
activity. Asked for his impressions of Iran's new president,
Hakim said he thought Mahmud Ahmadinejad would prove a strong
opponent of terror and an unlikely ally of U.S. efforts in
Iraq. END SUMMARY


2. (C) SCIRI leader Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim urged a wider U.S.
role in Iraqi affairs in a July 3 meeting with the Charge,
pointing to the emerging constitutional debate and stating,
"You have a key role -- more important than your role in the
government formation process or before that." SCIRI, he
said, is ready to implement and promote new ideas because
Iraq needs a wider strategy to fight terror. "If you like
it, do it," Hakim said. "We are not a research center." He
elaborated on the following key issues:


-- SUNNI CONSTITUTION INCLUSION MOVING FORWARD: Hakim
deferred to Constitution Committee Chairman Humam al-Hamudi
on the issue. Hamudi said that the TNA would welcome Sunni
Arab nominees into the constitution-drafting process by
Monday, July 4. Hamudi emphasized that he still "had
reservations" about both the names and the Sunni Arab request
that the TAL not be considered binding in the negotiations.
The Kurds remain concerned about Kirkuk's Mujbil Shaykh Issa,
and De-Ba'athification issues may still apply to Haseeb Arif
al-Obeidi. Hamudi has clearly lost confidence in his own
deputy constitution committee chairman, Adnan al-Janabi, whom
he blamed for the nomination of both these men and what he
saw as an unnecessarily small number of Iraqi Islamic Party
nominees to the committee. He also made it clear that he
sees trouble ahead from these delegates. "We will bring them
into the process for Bush," he said, "but if they block this
it's your responsibility." (COMMENT: Constitution Committee
members Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, Sami al-Askari, Hamid Majid
Musa, and Mariam al-Rais all echoed this warning in
subsequent conversations with Poloff on the margins of the
July 3 TNA session but said that induction would take place
July 4. END COMMENT)

-- IRAQ'S IDENTITY: Hamudi said that he expected the
constitution drafting committee to reach a compromise on the
issue of Iraq's Arab identity similar to that in the TAL.
The document would read, "The Arabs of Iraq part of the Arab
ummah." Hakim laughed and made it clear he found the whole
debate ridiculous. "Do you really need to say it?" he asked.
"It's like saying all humans are sons of Adam." Questioning
the importance of the issue, he said, "We do not want to be
debating whether Iraq is an Arab nation while people are
being killed in the streets." Constitution Committee member
and independent Islamist Abd al-Hadi Muhammad Said al-Hakim,
who also attended the meeting, mentioned that another
compromise formula under consideration would have the
constitution declare, "Iraq is part of two worlds, the
Islamic world and the Arab world."

-- AN EARLY CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE WITH SUNNIS: Hamudi noted
that he had met with National Dialogue Council leader Salah
Mutlak under the auspices of a meeting with UN SRSG Ashraf
Qazi on July 1. Hamudi said they clashed over the issue of
federalism. Mutlak was opposed to the idea, Hamudi said, and
wanted the committee to draft a temporary document, akin to
another TAL, rather than a full-fledged constitution. Hamudi
said that he and Mutlak were both in agreement that Iraq
needed a parliamentary system of government. Mutlak, Hamudi
said with suspicion, appears to want to join the constitution
drafting process under any circumstances.

-- RELIGION AND STATE: Hamudi, consistent with past
statements on the subject, said that the constitution will
handle the issue of religion and state much like the TAL did.


-- DIVIDING RESOURCES UNDER FEDERALISM: Hakim said he saw no
problem with any of several approaches to dividing state
resources, all as long as the process were done in a way that
is "balanced." Regions could own their resources, the
central government could own them, or a percentage could be
worked out to divide them. Hakim wondered whether opening
the ownership of resources up to the provinces might create
more disputes than it resolves, particularly as multiple
provinces move to claim assets that overlap their borders.
We asked how the system could be balanced if not all parts of
the country have the same resource base or even regional
governments yet. Hakim took the point and did not argue.
(COMMENT: we sense the issue of natural resource revenues is
one that requires considerable additional thought and
discussion among Iraqis. END COMMENT)

-- LEAVING INTERNAL BORDERS OPEN TO DEVELOPMENT: Echoing
Hamudi's view on the subject, Hakim said he believed that
Iraq's new internal borders should not be drawn by the
constitution. Instead, Iraq should continue to be governed
according to its provincial system, allowing the three
Kurdish provinces in the north to continue their arrangement.
The remaining 15 provinces would be free to form regional
entities with the agreement of parliament and their
populations. Asked for his vision of such entities, Hakim
said he expected southern provinces to form three regional
entities of three provinces each. For instance, one entity
might include Najaf, Karbala, and Babil. Another could
include Basra, Muthanna and Dhi Qar. A third might join
Wasit, Maysan, and Qadisiyya.

-- HOLDING FUTURE ELECTIONS BY PROVINCIAL LINES: Hakim said
he hoped future elections would divide the 275 seats of the
National Assembly among the provinces to ensure proper
regional representation. Using the population statistics
from the food-ration card system could provide at the
proportion of seats for each region.

-- ON KURDISH SECESSION: Hakim said he was not worried about
the possibility of Kurdish secession from Iraq. Speaking as
if the Kurds were in front of him, he said, "If you want to
secede, secede. We the Shia have nothing to lose. Starting
a country unaccepted by the Islamic world would be a problem,
however." (Note: PUK leader and Deputy Constitution
Committee Chairman Fu'ad Ma'asum has also made of point of
clearly dismissing the possibility of Kurdish secession in
conversations with Poloff about the constitution process.
"How could we withdraw?" he has said. "If we had a port it
would be another story, but we are a landlocked nation." End
Note)

-- LOOKING FOR MORE PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Hakim complained,
with the support of his colleagues, that the U.S. has not
taken sufficient action to provide provincial councils with
resources. Hamudi specifically recommended moving forward
with development in stable provinces as a way of showing
restive areas the price of terrorism. Abd al-Hadi al-Hakim
noted that, contrary to such an approach, electricity is
currently better in strife-ridden Ramadi than it is in the
comparatively calm province of Najaf. Charge and PolCouns
described the major steps being taken in the PRDC process to
address these concerns.

-- RAISING THE IDEA OF PROVINCIAL PROTECTION COMMITTEES:
Hakim complained that a major effort was underway to target
senior figures in the Shia community. The two most recent
examples of this campaign were the assassination last week of
TNA member Shaykh Dhari al-Fayad, a SCIRI ally and important
tribal leader, as well as the killing of SISTANI
Representative Kamal al-Din al-Guraifi. Hakim said books
were being distributed in the country defaming the Shia
religion, declaring both its practitioners and those who do
not denounce the Shia as "infidels." Hakim said he supported
the formation of public security committees and he claimed
was modeling the idea on British public defense programs.
Charge responded flatly that the U.S. rejected any militia
formation and activity in the country. Hakim protested that
these would not be militias but he did not pursue the point.

-- IRAN'S NEW PRESIDENT: Hakim described the newly elected
Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad to be a "good,
well-known man." Hakim noted in passing he had quickly
dispatched an envoy to Teheran and subsequently spoke on the
telephone with Ahmadinejad on July 2. Hakim said he was not
personally acquainted with Ahmedinejad because the man had
risen to prominence following his own departure from Iran in

2003. Hakim said Ahmedinejad's election took place in
circumstances similar to Khatami's: both men were elected
because the public rebelled against the candidate perceived
to be the "government's choice." In Khatami's case the
citizens rebelled against Shaykh Natiq Nuri, and in
Ahmadinejad the rebellion was against Rafsanjani. Hakim said
he was pleased with what he had heard form Ahmadinejad's
point of view so far, noting that the man "does not have a
complex about the people of Iraq." He has made clear, Hakim
said, that he opposes terrorism in Iraq. Hamudi jumped in to
state that Ahmadinejad would not cause problems for the U.S.
in Iraq. Hakim said all sides would do well to focus on the
shared American-Iranian interests in Iraq rather than allow
disputes in the American-Iranian bilateral relationship to
put the two sides in conflict here.


3. (C) COMMENT: Al-Hakim was relaxed and cordial but
interestingly Hamudi spoke almost as much as he. Hakim's
desire to see the U.S. and Iran find a modus vivendi was
evident; he and Hamudi recognize the hazards to them and
their freedom of maneuver should American-Iranian conflicts
be played out in Iraq. END COMMENT


4. (U) REO HILLA, REO BASRA, REO MOSUL, and REO KIRKUK,
minimize considered.
Satterfield