BAGHDAD, 19 September 2005 — Iraq’s Parliament finally approved a draft constitution yesterday, just four weeks before the text is put to a referendum, as violence persisted after one of the bloodiest weeks since the US invasion of 2003.
Kurdish parliamentary deputy Faris Hussein was shot dead along with three bodyguards on Saturday night as he traveled to Baghdad from the north. Fellow deputy Haider Qassem was wounded, National Assembly spokesman Peshro Saeed said.
On the eve of the Parliament meeting, rebels ambushed and killed a Kurdish MP and wounded another north of Baghdad while another 11 Iraqis lost their lives in attacks yesterday. “We are handing the draft over to the UN,” deputy parliamentary speaker Hussein Sharistani said after reading out five articles in the constitution that have been amended following talks between the ruling Shiites and Kurds and the minority Sunni Arabs.
The amendments to the text, adopted by Parliament in late August, were agreed to following informal talks in an attempt to bring on board the disenchanted Sunni Arab minority which had objected to several key provisions.
Article 3 of the new draft has been amended to state that Iraq “is a founding and effective member of the Arab League” in an attempt to soothe the feelings of Sunni Arabs who originally had called for the country’s identity to be described as ‘Arab’. The minority Kurdish population objected to this.
A new article was added to create two deputy premier posts, while another amendment stipulated that the federal government would ensure an equitable distribution of water resources between the regions.
The draft will now be sent to the UN representatives tasked with printing five million copies — in Arabic and Kurdish — for distribution to the public ahead of the referendum.
“If everything goes well we will start printing the constitution tomorrow (Monday). It will take approximately 10 days to print it if nothing goes wrong,” a UN official said.
Meanwhile, a Kurdish MP was shot dead in a road ambush on Saturday, the third lawmaker to be assassinated since the Jan. 30 general elections.
Fares Naser Hussein was killed and his colleague Hayder Kasim Shenshu wounded in the attack in which their driver and a bodyguard also died, an Interior Ministry official said.
The ambush took place near Mushahadah, some 30 kilometers north of the capital, as the two members of the Kurdish list in Parliament were heading toward Baghdad.
Seventy-five of Parliament’s 275 members were elected on the Kurdish list which includes Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and other minorities living in Kurdish regions and supports the government.
Sharistani condemned the attack and asked MPs to observe a one-minute silence in honor of their dead colleague.
Another 11 Iraqis, including eight members of the security forces, were killed in attacks yesterday, officials said.
The attacks took place as hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims were headed south amid tight security toward Karbala for ceremonies today. Last week, Al-Qaeda’s frontman in Iraq Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi called for “all-out war” against Shiites and claimed responsibility for a spate of deadly bombings that left more than 200 Iraqi Shiites dead.
Meanwhile, six insurgents were killed and four detained yesterday during house raids by US troops in the former rebel town of Tal Afar, the US military said.
Three more rebels were killed on Saturday in Tikrit, hometown of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, when a homemade bomb they were attempting to plant blew up, the military added.
