CONSTITUTION UPDATE AUGUST 16: NEGOTIATORS PAUSE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 003391 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/16/2025 TAGS: IZ PGOV PHUM SUBJECT: CONSTITUTION UPDATE AUGUST 16: NEGOTIATORS PAUSE FOR A BREATH Classified By: POL Couns Robert Ford, reason 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) National Assembly Constitution Committee Chairman Shaykh Humam Hamudi told PolCouns April 16 afternoon that he thought the time deadline to finish the constitution by August 22 will be achievable but tight. There are many disagreements among the negotiators, including whose text was definitive. The first order of priority was to settle on an operative text. Hamudi and the committee's two vice-chairmen completed reconciliation of the texts, noting the disagreements on language throughout the final draft document. This work was completed late evening August 16. ¶2. (C) Hamudi said that the Shia Coalition had met the morning of August 16 to discuss its final positions. He defined six points of difference with the Kurds. The first three he called Shia redlines, but the latter three could be negotiated: -- Kurdish views on federalism that Hamudi said touch on Iraqi unity itself. The Shia accept the Kurdish regional government but insist on Iraqi unity. He asked for U.S. intervention to caution the Kurds not to push too far. PolCouns noted that we caution the Kurds that the U.S. does not support an independent Kurdish state. (Comment: The only thing close to Kurdish independence in the draft constitution we have seen is a Kurdish request -- not approved -- for a sentence that mentions the phrase "self-determination for the Iraqi people" in the preamble. Hamudi, nonetheless was convinced of the Kurds' intent to hold a referendum, spurred on, he claimed, by the Kurdish parliament. End Comment.) -- Ownership and distribution of natural resource revenues. Hamudi said the Shia Coalition does not want the central government left bereft of revenues. -- exact language concerning Islam and the state in the text. -- the Kurdish demand to have representation of some sort in Iraqi embassies they found puzzling. -- the Kurds are demanding the National Assembly approve in total the Kurdish regional parliament's laws passed since 1991 (so they conform with national legislation). -- the structure and operations of the government, including the percentage of votes required in the future National Assembly to approve laws and government appointments. ¶3. (C) Hamudi added that the Kurds want to finalize the understanding about the election law for the December 2005 election as well. The Shia are offering to divide seats up for election in the future national assembly such that ninety percent of the assembly seats would be chosen on the basis of election results at the provincial level; the other ten percent would be ("compensatory") seats allocated on the basis of left-over votes tallied nationwide. The Kurds, with significant communities in central and southern Iraq, think the compensatory seat awards will benefit them want the split to be 80 percent / 20 percent. Hamudi thought they could split the difference in offers at 85/15. ¶4. (C) Separately, the Committee's second Vice-chairman, Adnan al-Janabi, told PolCouns that former Prime Minister Allawi's Iraqiya bloc, the third largest in the National Assembly, shared many of the concerns about the Kurdish proposals. Beyond those mentioned by Hamudi, he objected to the Kurdish proposal that the Iraqi army not deploy to any governorate or region without permission of the local authorities. ¶5. (C) Comment: In the wake of the late night rush August 15, the negotiators today took a pause to regroup. We have heard of few meetings between the core blocs August 16. At our urging, Hamudi agreed the Shia Coalition would reach out to Sunni Arab negotiators by inviting them the morning of August 17. Our sense is that the negotiators still frequently do not understand the motivations of the other negotiators and still ascribe all sorts of motivations to them. Adnan al-Janabi accused Hamudi of altering agreed text without anyone else's permission, for example. (There may be some truth to this, but all sides have been doing this, making the necessity to clarify a single text imperative.) We will encourage more off-line encounters to build a bit more trust in the remaining time. Khalilzad