How to Get Out of Iraq?

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Iraqis to Consider Autonomous Regions
Monday, September 25, 2006 2:37 AM EDT
The Associated Press (http://www.adelphia.net/news/read.php?ps=1018&id=13115611&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS)
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq's feuding ethnic and sectarian groups agreed Sunday to consider amending the constitution and begin debating legislation to create a federated nation, while the Shiite prime minister appealed for an end to violence during Ramadan.

Despite Nouri al-Maliki's plea for peace, violence killed at least 20 Iraqis and wounded 37 a day before the official start of the Muslim holy month. Two U.S. Marines died in combat in restive Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders broke a two-week deadlock and agreed on a compromise that will allow parliament to take up Shiite-proposed draft legislation to permit creation of partly self-ruling regions.

Sunni Arabs have fought the federalism bill, fearing it will splinter the country and deny them a share of Iraq's oil, which is found in the predominantly Kurdish north and the heavily Shiite south.

But they agreed to a legislative debate after all parties accepted a Sunni demand that a parliamentary committee be set up to study amending the constitution. The committee will be named Monday and the federalism bill will be read to 275-member parliament a day later.

Sunni Arabs hope to win an amendment that would make it more difficult to establish autonomous regions.

The deal opened the way for Iraq's communities to move ahead politically and solve an impasse that threatened to further sour relations between them. If left unresolved, the deadlock could have further shaken Iraq's fragile democracy and led to more sectarian violence.

The parliamentary committee will be made up of 27 legislators from all ethnic, sectarian and religious coalitions and parties. It will have four months to propose amendments, which then would have to be approved by a majority in parliament before being put to a national referendum.

"I expect the work of the committee will last for about one year," Dhafir al-Anihe, a lawmaker with the Sunni Arab National Accordance Front, told The Associated Press.

The federalism bill will be read to the legislature Tuesday and then debated for two days before parliament breaks for the Iraqi weekend. The legislation would be read again, with any changes made by legislators, next Sunday.

A vote would come four days after the second reading, with the bill needing a simple majority for passage. If approved, it would be implemented 18 months later, according to the deal made by the parties, allowing time for consideration of constitutional amendments.

"That was our agreement," Accordance Front legislator Hassan al-Shammari said.

The legislation calls for setting up a framework that would allow creation of autonomous regions in the Shiite south, much like the self-ruling Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Sunni Arabs warn that setting up such regions could intensify sectarian divisions that have brought months of retaliatory killings between Sunnis and Shiites.

Although federalism is enshrined in the constitution approved by Iraqis in a referendum a year ago, the right to seek amendments to the charter was a key demand made by Sunni Arabs when they agreed to join al-Maliki's national unity government in the spring.

The depth of enmity between Shiites and Sunni Arabs was evident in their disagreement over the day Ramadan was to begin.

Sunni Arabs began observing the month of daytime fasting Saturday, while Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, declared the start to be Monday. The Shiite-led government followed al-Sistani's lead.

Sectarian violence has been intense in Baghdad this year. A Saturday bombing in the Shiite slum of Sadr City killed at least 38 people buying fuel for Ramadan. A Sunni Arab extremist group claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for an attack by gunmen Friday on Sunni Arab homes and mosques that killed four people.

A lawmaker loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose stronghold is in Sadr City, demanded that Sunni Arabs take action against the group behind the bombing.

"All our brothers in religion should declare their innocence from such acts in order to isolate those criminals," Falah Hassan Shanshal said in a statement to parliament.

Earlier, the prime minister pleaded for peace and unity.

"We are all invited to make use of these days to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood and avoid anything that could hurt the social fabric of the Iraqi people," al-Maliki said in s statement.

"Iraq is living in a very sensitive and historic period, either we live as loving brothers side by side and undivided by sectarianism or Iraq will shift into an area for settling accounts of political parties."

At least 20 people were killed and 37 injured Sunday in scattered violence around Iraq, including a mortar attack on the Health Ministry in Baghdad and a car bombing aimed at a police patrol in the city. Police also discovered 13 more apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

The prime minister's office said Iraqi forces had arrested a leader and seven aides in the 1920 Revolution Brigades, also known as the al-Ashreen Brigades, a group responsible for attacks and kidnappings. It said they were caught Saturday northeast of Baghdad, but gave no further details.

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Associated Press writers Patrick Quinn, David Rising, Sinan Salaheddin, Sameer N. Yacoub and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report.

But the Bush Admin will see this as an embarrassing defeat?

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The U.S. could then bring the bulk of her troops home, and station a sizable number in Kurdistan along with air assets. Sounds like a plan to me.:)

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Link (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq25sep25,0,7182820.story?track=tottext)

Iraq Puts Autonomy Issue on Hold, Heading Off Crisis
A deal provides for an 18-month delay, a forum and changes on a federal system that would boost Shiites' and Kurds' hold on oil-rich regions.

By Doug Smith and Saif Rasheed
Times Staff Writers

September 25, 2006

BAGHDAD — Iraq's leaders stepped back from a simmering constitutional crisis Sunday, agreeing to wait at least 18 months before setting up autonomous regions that would shift power away from the central government.

During the cooling-off period, parliament would consider amendments to the constitution, providing a public forum for the divisive issue of autonomy.

The deal, which was still being fine-tuned Sunday night, allows lawmakers to avoid a looming deadline that threatened to exacerbate the sectarian violence ravaging the country.

The compromise leaves intact southern Shiite Muslims' and northern Kurds' goal of creating a federal system that would strengthen their hold on the vast oil resources of their two regions. At the same time, Sunni Arabs, who dominate in the resource-poor central and western provinces, would have time to seek constitutional changes to limit the effects of autonomy.

The breakthrough occurred on a day in which bombings and killings claimed dozens of lives and Iraqi TV broadcast a videotape of two dead American soldiers being mutilated.

The military reported the deaths of two Marines in Al Anbar province Sunday. It did not release their names.

The video, a longer version of a clip aired in the summer, purported to show the two soldiers killed in June in an area south of Baghdad. The Mujahedin Shura Council, a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for that attack.

The group said the deaths were in retaliation for the March raid in which U.S. soldiers allegedly raped an Iraqi girl and killed her and members of her family. Five U.S. soldiers and a former member of their unit face charges that range from failure to report the incident to rape and murder.

The video aired several times Sunday on the Al Arabiya channel. It showed masked men tying the partly unclad bodies to a truck by their heels and driving off. A later scene showed the bodies engulfed in flames. A narrator said the soldiers should be shown no mercy.

Lawmakers of all the major political blocs participated in the closed-door talks that led to the constitutional compromise. The deal will be put before the parliament this week for approval.

"I feel this agreement has ended a political crisis," said Dhafir Ani of the minority Sunni bloc that opposed the federal system. "I think for us this deal is good but not perfect."

Those present said the agreement called for the parliament to appoint a committee that would have a year to recommend amendments to the constitution. The members are to be named today.

On Tuesday, the parliament is to begin debate on proposals for forming a federal system. At least four groups have offered their own drafts of the power-sharing law, but the one provided by the majority Shiite bloc is expected to prevail. The 18-month waiting period for implementation will begin once the law is passed.

A clause allowing amendments was added to the constitution as a last-minute concession to Sunnis who objected to the mandate for a federal system. The constitution also set a deadline that would have required implementation of the new federal system by Oct. 22.

Party leaders downplayed the idea that the federalism clause would be the primary item on the new committee's agenda.

Ayad Samaraie, a Sunni member of parliament who was involved in the talks, said the committee would provide an opportunity to put aside sectarian issues and consider a variety of amendments in the national interest.

Authorities in Baghdad, meanwhile, reported that 45 bodies were received at the morgue Sunday — eight victims of assassination and the remainder killed and dumped after being kidnapped.

Several car bombs went off in east Baghdad. Two Iraqi policemen were killed and several officers and civilians injured in a 10:30 a.m. blast in the Rusafa neighborhood, and a second bomb targeting police in Alwiya killed a civilian.

In the afternoon, a car bomb near the Baghdad morgue killed four policemen and two civilians and injured eight.

Health Minister Ali Shammari escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb detonated as his motorcade passed in Yarmouk, in south Baghdad. There were no casualties.

Five people were killed in separate attacks in Baqubah, north of Baghdad.

Police in the northern city of Kirkuk said they found the bodies of four unidentified shooting victims who had been tortured.

A curfew was imposed in the southern city of Samawah after a former Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military was gunned down late Saturday, the Muthanna provincial police chief said.

Armed men stormed into a government building in Hillah in the south, killing a guard.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said Sunday that American and Iraqi forces had killed 14 people and detained more than 25 in strikes on terrorist cells last week. The raids, in five provinces, also yielded caches of weapons and explosive devices. In one attack, three men in explosives vests were killed by aircraft fire in Al Anbar, the statement said.

doug.smith@latimes.com

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Times staff writers Zeena Karim and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah, Kirkuk and Kuwait contributed to this report.

[Nickdfresh]

The Magic Eight-ball™ says 18-months of more killing and of U.S. servicepeople being killed.:(