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