NYT: Despearte Repubs in bait-n-switch to salvage the Constitution vote

[boutons]

This weekend's popular voting on the Constitution will be a huge indicator as to whether the Iraqis, esp the Sunnis, are serious about democracy, are able to manage their own affairs, are willing to get past the Sunni/Shiite/Kurd ethnic, sectarian divisions. Until today, the once-abusively-dominant now-minority Sunnis have resisted the Constitution, even threatening to boycott the voting, fueling Sunni insurgency and the Sunni slaughter of Shiites.

What the Repubs, desparate that the Constitution not be defeated AND that the Sunnis actually vote, have done now is to try to bait the Sunnis into voting for the Constitution as is, with a promise to switch the Constitution around later ("broad revisions"). But once the Constitution is voted in as is, it will very probably be very difficult to change it, ie, effectively "set in stone".

iow, with this switcheroo/"Just vote it now. You can change it later" tactic, if the Constitution is STILL voted down this weekend, it will be GAMEOVER in Iraq, the "course to be stayed" will be essentially at its end.

If the Constitution is voted in, then there are the parliamentary elections before year end. And then Sunnis will be expecting that "provisional" Constitution they voted for, but don't want, will be changed later. But as a definite parliamentary/populational minority, the Sunnis won't have enough parliamentary votes get it changed.

As was found in the recent Afghanistan elections, don't be surprised if there are reports of major election fraud this weekend (assuming the Repubs even allow in UN/other election monitors (who risk their lives), especially with Repubs drawing on their Florida 2000 election disenfranchisement/fraud tactics. :)

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Iraqi Leaders Reach Last-Minute Deal on Charter Revision

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: October 11, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 11 - Iraqi political leaders agreed to an important last-minute revision in the draft constitution this evening in exchange for a promise by some prominent Sunni Arab leaders to support the document in this Saturday's nationwide referendum.

The revision would create a panel in Iraq's next parliament with the power to propose broad revisions to the constitution, which would otherwise have been largely set in stone if the public approved it on Saturday.

The agreement was a major victory for American officials, who have spent weeks urging Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders to make changes that would soften Sunni opposition to the charter.

[boutons]

well, it sounded pretty good for a couple days, but below doesn't sound very good at all. I figure the Repubs best chance to pass the Iraqi Constitution is massive Florida-style voting fraud.

If the Constitution gets voted down this weekend, then the US should start pulling out and let the Iraqis have their Shiite/Sunni/Kurd civil war.

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The New York Times
October 12, 2005

Sunni Leaders Offer Mixed Views of Deal on Constitution
By DEXTER FILKINS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 12 - Sunni Arab leaders offered a mixed reaction today to a last-minute deal aimed at bolstering the prospects of Iraq's constitution, which is to set to go before Iraqi voters in a nationwide referendum on Saturday.

A number of Sunni religious and political leaders, whose community forms the backbone of the guerilla insurgency, said they would continue to oppose the draft charter, despite the agreement Tuesday of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni Arab political party. Among the rejectionists was the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents hundreds of Sunni clerics from across the country.

"We are against this constitution because we think it encourages the sectarian division of this country," said Isam Al Rawi, of the Muslim clerics.

But at least one conservative Sunni leader, Mahmood Al Mashahadani, declared today that he had changed his mind and decided to endorse the constitution and would urge Iraqis to approve it Saturday. Mr. Mashahadani made the statement a day after Iraqi leaders announced that they had agreed to insert a mechanism into the constitution that could allow for substantial changes to it after the new, full-term national assembly is chosen in the December elections. That agreement prompted the endorsement of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

"It's a hard fact that if we want to want to achieve our demands of freeing the country from occupation, we have to engage in the political process to do so," Mr. Mashahadani said. "We will call on all the voters to say "yes," because there is no meaning in saying "no."

The Iraqi National Assembly approved the revision this evening, when no one raised any objections to the proposal.

The developments came as the campaign of violence continued ahead of the referendum Saturday. Today, a suicide bomber killed at least 20 Iraqis and wounded 30 others at an army recruiting center near Tal Afar today - the second time this small northwestern town was targeted by insurgents in as many days.

The mixed reaction to the deal, while perhaps not quite what the Iraqi government and its Americans were hoping for, suggested that their strategy of driving a wedge into Iraq's Sunni population was showing some success.

Iraqi leaders hailed the deal today as all but ensuring that the constitution would be approved Saturday. Sunnis are thought to make up a majority in only three of Iraq's provinces, and they can defeat the constitution if they can muster two-thirds majorities in all three provinces against it.

That prospect, which seemed unlikely before, seemed more improbable after Tuesday's agreement. At a ceremony today, Shiite leaders said the agreement with the Iraqi Islamic Party had all but ensured the charter's success.

"We were confident before, but now we are totally confident," said Ali Dabagh, a member of the Shiite alliance that holds a majority of the seats in the national assembly.

But for weeks, the greatest concern of Iraqi and American leaders has been that the constitution would pass without significant Sunni support, and possibly drive more Iraqis toward violence. Such an outcome would undercut one of the principal goals of the American-fostered democratic process that had been unfolding here over the past year; that the process itself would co-opt the insurgency by giving more Sunnis a take in the new Iraq.

So far, that hasn't happened. The Sunnis largely boycotted the elections in January, and then, in August, a group of Sunni leader refused to support the draft constitution agreed on by Shiite and Kurdish negotiators.

The deal Tuesday was the first sign that the Iraqi leaders, with American prodding, might begin to reverse that.

In the attack in Tal Afar, a man wearing an explosive belt blew himself up outside the Al-Qualah army recruitment center about six miles outside the town, where Iraqis were gathering to apply for jobs, said Saleh Al-Qadoo, head doctor at Tal Afar hospital. "The explosion was horrible," he said, recounting witness accounts. He added that the death toll of 20 seemed certain to rise.

Elsewhere in Iraq today, three suicide car bombs and two roadside bomb explosions killed one Iraqi and wounded 28, raising the number of victims of the insurgency to 425 in the past 17 days, The Associated Press reported.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[ChumpDumper]

Are enough voters even going to be able to read a copy of the constitution before they vote on it?

I'm still trying to figure out what the rush is.

[boutons]

The Iraqi "government" is circulating millions of copies of the Constitution right now.

Read it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101201450_pf.html

rush? why delay? The minority Sunnis, providing the insurgents, have already been saying for months that they don't want the Constitution as is. How much will the vote change by delaying for more months? Vote and face the consequences.

[ChumpDumper]

This text does not include any last-minute changes that are expected to be put to the National Assembly for approval but will be updated as soon as any announcements are made.I heard they were having trouble getting it out, and who knows how many more revisions are forthcoming.
rush? why delay? The minority Sunnis, providing the insurgents, have already been saying for months that they don't want the Constitution as is. How much will the vote change by delaying for more months?Gee, maybe they could change it in that time.

But, yeah -- all that remains to be seen is if the Sunnis show up with ballots or bullets.

[boutons]

The dubya lie, that the Repubs invaded Iraq to bring them democracy and freedom, will be hanging in the balance this weekend.

I wonder what kind of fireworks the Sunnis and jihadis have planned for this weekend. Sounds like more than a few Sunnis ain't voting or are voting against the Constitution.

The real shame is how many Iraqis have died and will die for the Repubs' bogus, war, incompetence, and bungling, with dubya having replaced Saddam as the leading cause of Iraqi deaths.

==============================

The New York Times
October 13, 2005

Powerful Sunni Group Urges Iraqis to Reject New Charter

By DEXTER FILKINS and EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 13 - A powerful Sunni organization urged Iraqi voters today to reject the country's new constitution in Saturday's nationwide referendum, one day after lawmakers approved a deal intended to overcome Sunni objections to the draft charter.

The continued opposition to the document by the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents hundreds of Sunni clerics from across the country, came after others, among them the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political party, had signaled they would now support the charter. Iraq's Sunni Arab minority provides the backbone of the guerilla insurgency, which has intensified as the referendum approaches.

"We call on the people to boycott the referendum or to vote no," a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, Abdul Salam al-Qubaisi, said today at a news conference at the Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad. He said that even with the latest amendment, the charter risked the breakup of Iraq and added that no constitution that was agreed to while the American-led coalition forces were still in the country could be considered legitimate.

Mr. Qubaisi also urged the Iraqi Islamic Party to withdraw its backing from the charter.

"The amendment was a trap," he said.

At least two other Sunni leaders, Adnan al-Dulaimi of the Conference of the Iraqi People and Kamal Hamdoon, a Sunni member of the constitution drafting committee, have also said that they would continue to oppose the constitution.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Iraqi Islamic Party justified their decision to back the charter.

"We were keen that Iraq should be stable," said Ayad al-Samarraie, a senior party official. "We didn't want this country to be in a state of turmoil because of constitutional disputes."

Mr. Samarraie added that he believed Sunni Arab support of the constitution and of the December legislative elections would give Sunnis more representation in the new parliament and thus a greater chance of pushing through desired changes to the charter.

There were faint signs of movement among other Sunni leaders as well.

"It's a hard fact that if we want to achieve our demands of freeing the country from occupation, we have to engage in the political process to do so," another influential Sunni, Mahmood al-Mashhadani, said in an interview on Wednesday. "We will call on all the voters to say yes, because there is no meaning in saying no."

Former President Ghazi al-Yawar, who had conspicuously failed to show up in August for a ceremony announcing the completion of the constitution, also publicly endorsed the document on Wednesday.

The National Assembly adopted the revisions to the draft constitution Wednesday evening, when no one raised any objections to the proposal. There was no vote.

The mixed reaction among Sunni leaders, while perhaps not quite what the Iraqi government and its American backers were hoping for, suggested that the strategy of driving a wedge into the Sunni population was showing some success.

The announcement by Iraqi Islamic Party leaders appeared to enrage some insurgent leaders. In a statement released on the Internet, one insurgent group, the Victorious Army Group, declared war on the party for approving "the infidel constitution." It declared the party's top two leaders, Mohsen Hamid and Tariq al-Hashemi, to be apostates from Islam and singled them out for death.

"They should receive from the mujahedeen their fate," said the statement, which was translated by SITE, a Washington group that tracks insurgent communications on the Internet.

Al Arabiya, the Arabic language television network, reported on Wednesday that the party's offices in Falluja had been bombed. An employee of The New York Times who went to the site could not gain sufficient access to confirm the report.

With the vote only three days away, violence flared across the country on Wednesday. In the northern town of Tal Afar, a man wearing an explosive belt pressed himself into a group of men standing outside an army recruiting center and blew himself up, killing at least 30 Iraqis and wounding 35 more, many of whom suffered severe burns and severed limbs. The attack followed a similar bombing on Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a market crowded with shoppers, killing at least 24 Iraqis.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld predicted on Wednesday that the changes in the Iraqi constitution would prompt increased attacks by insurgents bent on derailing the political process. "They'll be even more aggressive, I would suspect, between now and Oct. 15," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him at a regional security conference near Miami. "The last thing in the world the enemies want is success."

In Baghdad, Iraqi leaders hailed the agreement with the Iraqi Islamic Party as all but ensuring that the constitution would be approved. Sunnis are thought to constitute a majority in only three of Iraq's provinces, and they can defeat the constitution only if they muster two-thirds' majorities of the votes in all three provinces. On the basis of their numbers alone, such an outcome has been considered unlikely.

"We were confident before, but now we are totally confident," said Ali Dabagh, a member of the Shiite alliance that holds a majority of the seats in the National Assembly.

For weeks, the greatest concern of Iraqi and American leaders has been that the constitution would pass, but without significant Sunni support, possibly driving more Iraqis toward violence. That would undercut one of the principal goals of the American-backed democratic process, to co-opt the insurgency by giving more Sunnis a stake in Iraq's future.

But with the insurgency as vibrant and deadly as ever and the refusal of Sunni leaders since August to support the proposed constitution, the deal on Tuesday was one of the first signs that the political process might be starting to have its intended effect.

Over all, Sunni voters are expected to turn out in significant numbers on Saturday, though many Iraqi leaders predict that the Sunnis will vote overwhelmingly against the constitution.

Harb Al-Mukhtarand Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, and Eric Schmitt from Key Biscayne, Fla.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Marcus Bryant]

Iraq was invaded as part of a general strategy to remake the Middle East into something other than a hotbed of despots. Granted, it has its flaws, such as ommitting the Saudi Royal Family, but if you believe that Islamic terrorism is borne out of the oppression and poverty experienced by many in the ME, well, it should float your boat.

[boutons]

"general strategy to remake the Middle East"

As part of the general dissembling by the Repubs before the war, this was NOT in the top 5 reasons the Repugs gave for justifying the invasion. The Repubs knew people were not stupid, gullible enough to support such a low-percentage ploy with 10's of 1000's of American lives and casualties.

Now that all the top reasons for starting the war have been seen to be bogus and lies, the "bring democracy and freedom" bullshit is trotted out retro-actively. It still stinks. US cannot even assure invaded, occupied "slam dunk" Iraq will swallow democracy now, and maintain it effectively to meet the Repubs supposed goal for the war.

Iran, SA, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt power structures won't back down and embrace democracy because it means those power structures will be out of power. Nobody gives up power willingly, peacefully. The Repubs SHOULD have known that. I'm sure they did, meaning the democracy BS is just one more lie in the long list of lies.

The jihad against USA is specifically because the USA is occupying the ME countries of SA and Iraq, and because the USA supports Israel agains the Palestinians.

[Marcus Bryant]

It was part of the strategy. Perhaps you didn't hear it as you were loudly frothing and panting with anger over the repugs, dubya and the rich.

[boutons]

"part of the strategy"

there was a whole list of lies in that "strategy", but "democracy of Iraq" was totally lost after:

WMD, mobile bio labs (Powell lying to the UN),
Saddam immediate and imminent threat to US homeland.
Saddam caused 9/11
Saddam supporting jihad
etc,
.
.
.
.
then maybe in tiny fine print, and in a tiny voice
bring democracy to Iraq and all of ME

I'm absotuley sure I'm not the only one who didn't pay any attention to bullshit reason-du-jour number 35.

[Marcus Bryant]

It was certainly mentioned and it's been part of the grand vision of the "neocons" to force the ME to embrace liberal Western political and economic tradition. I'm not saying it's a good or bad idea, but the administration certainly did not lie about that being a part of its aim in taking out Hussein.

[boutons]

Has anybody seen Jeb Bush hanging around Bagdad?


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BBC NEWS

Iraq result delay over fraud fear

Iraqi election officials say the formal result of the country's vote on a new constitution will be delayed, amid accusations of fraud.

Officials said turnout from some areas seemed abnormally high and ballots needed to be double-checked.

Some Sunni Arab politicians have alleged that corrupt practices were allowed to boost the Yes vote.

However monitors from the United Nations said the vote went well and that most people had been able to vote.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said it needed several more days to complete the count "after finding that the figures from most provinces were too high".

Storm

The commission said in some areas nearly all votes indicated a Yes, and in others a No, and that in such circumstances the ballots would have to be audited, in line with international practice.

The count was also disrupted by a sandstorm that blew up in central Iraq, preventing ballots from being flown to Baghdad for counting and slowing their progress on the roads.


The result of the referendum was originally expected later this week, but the electoral commission warned it might now be put back several days.

Unofficial results leaked out suggesting that the referendum would be endorsed.

There were indications that Shia and Kurdish areas had voted heavily for the constitution, while opponents may have got the upper hand in only two of Iraq's provinces, not the three they need to veto the charter.

The Associated Press cited an anonymous official saying that heavily Sunni Anbar and central Salahuddin provinces had rejected the treaty by the required two-thirds, but that Ninevah and Diyala, thought to have slight Sunni majorities, may have voted in favour.

Reuters also said the vote appeared to have backed the constitution, but there was no official confirmation.

'Peaceful process'

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, alleged vote-rigging in Diyala, saying soldiers had removed ballot boxes and that there had been more votes cast than registered electors.

However, there was international approval that the vote went ahead relatively peacefully, and that turnout was high, even in Sunni areas where some groups urged a boycott.

US President George W Bush called the high participation "a positive development", and said it showed that "people are willing to try to work out their political differences through a process, a peaceful process".

One place where few people appeared to have voted was Ramadi, west of Baghdad, where militant activity has been high.

US helicopters and warplanes bombed villages near the town on Sunday, killing about 70 militants, the US military said, though eye-witnesses said many of the dead were civilians.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4351680.stm

Published: 2005/10/18 00:09:16 GMT

© BBC MMV

[boutons]

The New York Times
October 18, 2005

Monitors in Iraq Review Votes Where 'Yes' Ballots Hit 90%
By DEXTER FILKINS and ROBERT F. WORTH

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 17 - Iraqi election officials said Monday that they were investigating "unusually high" vote totals in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces, where as many as 99 percent of the voters were reported to have cast ballots in favor of Iraq's new constitution. The investigation raised the possibility that the results of the referendum could be called into question.

In a statement on Monday evening, the Independent Election Commission of Iraq said the results of the referendum on Saturday would have to be delayed "a few days" because the apparently high number of "yes" votes required election workers to "recheck, compare and audit" the results.

The statement made no mention of the possibility of fraud, but said results were being re-examined to comply with internationally accepted standards. Election officials say that under those standards, voting procedures should be re-examined anytime a candidate or a ballot question got more than 90 percent of the vote.

Members of the commission declined to give any details. But one official with knowledge of the balloting said the 12 provinces where the "yes" votes exceeded 90 percent all had populations that were majority Shiite or Kurdish. Leaders from those communities strongly endorsed the proposed constitution.

Some of the provinces, the official said, reported that 99 percent of the ballots counted were cast in favor of the constitution.

It is difficult to imagine why any Shiite or Kurdish political leaders would resort to fraud. Together the two groups make up about 80 percent of Iraq's population.

None of the provinces cited for a closer look had Sunni majorities, the official said, although there were reports of similarly lopsided votes against the constitution in some Sunni areas. There are 3 Sunni majority provinces, of a total of 18.

"When you find consistently very, very high numbers, then that is cause for further checking," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Anything over 90 percent either way usually leads to further investigation."

Aside from the announcement, the results of the referendum began to come into focus. About 10 million Iraqis cast ballots, or about 64 percent of registered voters, said Barham Salih, the minister for planning. Preliminary results, he said, show the constitution appears to have been approved by about 65 percent of those voting.

But now those totals are being questioned.

The announcement on Monday seemed likely to feed doubts among many Iraqi voters, especially Sunnis, many of whom are deeply suspicious of the Shiite majority and of the Kurds. Such tensions could inhibit the delicate effort now under way to woo the Sunnis, many of whom have joined the insurgency, into the democratic process.

According to the statement, the election commission intended to re-examine many aspects of the balloting, including "examining random samples from ballot boxes," the statement said. Such a process could drag out for days, raising the possibility that the election for a full-term Parliament, planned for Dec. 15, would have to be delayed.

Some Sunni leaders said the lopsided votes suggested fraud. Mishaan al-Jubouri, a National Assembly member and Sunni leader, said he favored a thorough investigation.

The Shiite and Kurdish political parties in power "were filling out forms and stuffing them into boxes," he said in an interview. "They were also voting in the names of those who hadn't come to vote."

Mr. Jubouri said that monitors in several southern provinces, for example, reported modest voter turnout in their polling centers, but that after the polls closed, officials released overall turnout figures there that appeared to be extraordinarily high. They included results from the predominantly Shiite provinces of Najaf, Karbala and Wasit, he said.

Some centers did not even have 20 or 30 percent voter turnout, he said.

"This gives an impression that the process wasn't transparent," he added.

The allegations could not be verified.

The reaction of some Sunni leaders to the investigation was more muted; they said they were largely resigned to the passage of the constitution and wanted to prepare for nationwide elections in December, when many Sunnis are expected to vote.

In the weeks leading up to the referendum, some Shiite leaders expressed fears that the constitution could be defeated by a combination of a high Sunni turnout and a low Shiite one. To address those concerns, the National Assembly quietly passed a measure that changed the way votes were counted, lowering the threshold for passage of the constitution.

Under intense international pressure, the assembly rescinded the measure shortly before the referendum.

The inquiry into the vote was largely a formality, set off by the overwhelming support for the constitution, said Mr. Salih, the planning minister. He said the commission had assured him that there was, as yet, no reason to suspect any fraud.

"They are adamant that the evidence was overwhelming that the election was free and fair," Mr. Salih said of the commission members.

Mr. Salih said he had expected the constitution to pass by a wide margin in the Shiite and Kurdish areas, and to be overwhelmingly opposed in the Sunni areas.

"There is polarization in the society," Mr. Salih said. "There is the political leadership for each community, and the population tends to follow them."

Indeed, many Shiites interviewed at the polls on Saturday said they were voting for the charter largely because of the endorsement of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands widespread and often unquestioning allegiance among Iraq's Shiites.

The election commission has authority to overturn the results of the election if the members - six Iraqis and one non-Iraqi - decide the balloting was not conducted lawfully.

To guard against the possibility of fraud and intimidation, the commission deployed 57,000 election observers, drawn from local aid groups, and 120 representatives of political parties.

Mahmood Othaman, a Kurdish member of the National Assembly, said the monitors were largely partisans themselves, leaving very few objective safeguards in place.

In the Kurdish areas, the makeup of the teams effectively put the two main Kurdish parties in charge. "I expected these things," Dr. Othaman said. "I said it all along. If there is no census, and no outside observers, you can expect this.

"The people who were observing were the same as the candidates. The U.N. sits in Amman and says it's all good, it's free and fair, because they don't want to come here."

Even as the vote counting went on, some Iraqis were already looking to the December elections. On Monday a group of leaders, led by the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, announced the formation of a secular political coalition, intended to blunt the coalition of Shiite religious parties.

Edward Wong contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Marcus Bryant]

Awesome. Nutjobs knock the vote until it comes in for the US position (well, at least those of us who are for the US position in here). Then it's a scam.

So who's up for a junket to Bohemian Grove?