2 writing Iraq constitution killed
By Kirk Semple The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
BAGHDAD In a setback to Iraq's fledgling democratic process, two Sunni
Arab participants in the committee mandated to draft Iraq's constitution were
assassinated Tuesday on a busy street in central Baghdad, officials said.
Mejbil al-Sheikh Isa and Damin al-Obeidi were ambushed while they were
riding in a car that was taking them from a meeting of committee members,
officials said. A bodyguard accompanying them, Aziz Ebrahim, was also killed in
the attack.
Isa was among 15 Sunni Arabs recently appointed to diversify the
committee, and Obeidi was among 10 newly appointed Sunni Arab consultants to
the committee. Before the appointments, which came after weeks of negotiations
between Shiites and Sunni Arabs about how many Sunnis to include on the
committee, the committee had 55 members, nearly all of whom were Shiites or
Kurds.
The killings could imperil efforts by the American authorities and the
Shiite and Kurd-dominated national government to draw more Sunni Arabs into the
democratic process as part of a strategy to undermine a violent insurgency.
Insurgents intent on destabilizing the government have threatened to kill
any Sunni Arabs who participated in the constitution-writing process. The
victims in the shooting Tuesday were the first members of the committee to be
killed.
Initial suspicions fell on Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a group operating in
Iraq and led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has vowed to overthrow the current
government.
"There was a threat made by Al Qaeda to all the new Sunni members joining
the constitution committee," said Ayad Al-Samaraai, a Sunni member of the
committee and a member of the moderate Islamic Party. "But I still think that
we should wait until we see the results of the investigation."
Condemnation of the assassinations was swift and bipartisan, with Sunni
Arabs and Shiites alike denouncing the attack.
"This is the hand of terrorism, which does not want the country to move
toward stability and to write the constitution in harmony with all Iraqis," Ali
al-Dabbag, a Shiite member of the National Assembly, said in a telephone
interview. The slain Sunni Arabs, he said, represented hope for what he called
"a middle solution."
Fhakri al-Qaisi, a member of the National Dialogue Committee, a Sunni
political organization, said the Sunni members of the constitution-writing
committee had repeatedly asked the government to help provide security for them
but their requests were not granted.
"We asked many times about guards, but we did not get any," he said. "We
are neglected and no one cares about us. I do not know how we are going to
build a country in such circumstances."
The bodyguard who was traveling with the two committee participants had
been hired by one of the men and had not been assigned by the government,
according to a Sunni committee member who requested anonymity because of
concerns about his safety.
Calls seeking comment from the Interior Ministry were not returned and
there was no immediate public comment regarding the attacks from Interior
Minister Bayan Jabr or the office of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The Sunni member of the committee who requested anonymity insisted that
the Sunni delegation would not withdraw in the wake of the attack.
"We need to discuss our reaction to what happened, but I can tell you
that we will continue working in the constitution committee," he said.
There was disagreement among several Sunni committee members about
whether they would suspend their participation pending the outcome of a
government investigation into the slayings.
Ali Muhammad, 17, a guard at the popular Azaem restaurant in the Karrada
neighborhood, said he was standing outside the restaurant when he saw a minibus
pull abreast of the sedan in light early afternoon traffic. Three men inside
the minibus riddled the sedan with gunfire from AK-47 semiautomatic rifles,
then escaped in their vehicle down a nearby alley.
The attacks followed a morning news conference in which Iraq's president,
Jalal Talabani, predicted that the new constitution could be completed by the
end of the month.
Parliament has until Aug. 15 to adopt a draft, which will be put to a
national referendum by mid-October. Elections for a full government are
scheduled for mid-December.
Talabani reported the committee had been making good progress, but added
that "there are some Arab brothers" who "have some reservations that are being
taken into consideration."
"If we can reach an agreement with them," he said, according to Reuters,
"I believe the constitution can be ready by the end of the month."
He did not identify the critics in question, but heavily contested issues
include federalism and the role of Islam in Iraqi law.
There was scattered violence around Iraq on Tuesday, killing more than a
dozen people.
The most deadly attack occurred at about 8 a.m. when insurgents in two
cars opened fire on a minibus carrying Iraqi workers to an American military
base in Khalis, north of Baghdad.
Ten of the workers were killed and the minibus driver was wounded,
according to an official at the Interior Ministry.
The minibus crashed into a passing car, the official said, and killed
three people in the car.
In Kirkuk, two people, including at least one police officer, were killed
in a roadside bomb attack, and five others, including two police officers, were
wounded, according to the authorities.
Notably, however, there were no reported suicide bombings, which became a
brutal and defining feature of the landscape during an eight-day stretch from
July 10-17.
During that period, Greater Baghdad was bloodied by numerous suicide
attacks, including an attack on American troops that killed more than two dozen
civilians, most of them children, and a suicide bombing Saturday involving a
fuel tanker that killed at least 71 people and wounded at least 156.
Ali Adeeb, Thaier Aldaami and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for
this article.
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