Gold9472
10-04-2005, 09:52 PM
New Rules on Iraqi Vote May Violate Standards, U.N. Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?ei=5088&en=a11a2e56c638a4ef&ex=1286078400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
By KIRK SEMPLE
and ROBERT F. WORTH
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 4 - The United Nations said today that newly adopted rules for the coming Iraqi constitutional referendum appeared to violate accepted international standards for elections.
United Nations officials met in Baghdad with Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite political legislators who had quietly adopted the new rules on Sunday. The rule change would make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail and has infuriated many Sunni Arab political leaders who oppose the document.
Hussein al-Shahristani, the acting speaker of the National Assembly, said political leaders hoped to reach a resolution on the referendum rules and present it to legislators by Wednesday.
In the new rules, the legislators designated two different meanings for the word "voters" in a single passage where the word appears to mean the same thing. That set off accusations by Sunni Arab leaders and independent political figures that Shiite and Kurdish legislators were using an unfair double standard to achieve their goal of seeing the constitution passed.
"When there is a contradiction on two different interpretations within one text, that would become an issue," Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan, said in a news conference at the United Nations. He added, "Ultimately this will be a sovereign decision by the Iraqis, and it's up to the Iraqi National Assembly to decide on the appropriate electoral framework."
American officials in Iraq have made renewed efforts over the past week to broker changes to the text of the constitution in an effort to placate Sunni Arabs who widely oppose the document. But the new controversy on how to count votes in the referendum appeared to be impeding the American effort.
Time is also running short and millions of copies have already been printed under United Nations supervision.
"There are still discussions among different groups, but nothing has been presented to the National Assembly, and it is unlikely at this last minute that changes will be adopted," Mr. Shahristani said.
The constitutional struggle unfolded as about 2,500 American and Iraqi troops began a major military offensive today along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad, the latest attempt by the American command to root out insurgents who have used the river corridor to smuggle fighters and weapons from the Syrian border to the center of the country.
The sweep, focusing on the river towns of Haditha, Haqlaniya and Barwana in Anbar Province, is only the latest in a series of large-scale operations designed to choke off insurgent supply routes in the region. Past efforts have scored only limited gains as insurgents have largely melted away in the face of the offensives and returned once the troops have returned to their bases.
Military officials also announced today that five American troops were killed on Monday in three separate incidents. Three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Haqlaniya while conducting an operation in advance of the offensive in Anbar, officials said, and a Marine died in a roadside bomb near Qaim on the Syrian border where about 1,000 troops have been conducting a separate counterinsurgency sweep.
A fifth soldier died in a shooting near Taqaddum, a town close to Fallujah, though military officials did not explain the circumstances of the shooting or whether it was combat-related, friendly fire or self-inflicted.
The offensives along the Euphrates River corridor and the Syrian border come ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution and are in part intended to tame those regions to permit residents to vote. American and Iraqi military officials have warned that insurgents are likely to step up their campaign of violence as the vote approaches. Many Sunni Arabs oppose the constitution and sectarian tensions have sharpened in recent weeks as political leaders have taken public stands on the document.
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, used the holy month of Ramadan, which began today for most Sunnis and will begin on Wednesday for Shiites, to encourage his loyalists to step up their attacks on foreign forces. He called Ramadan "a month of serious work, jihad and initiative."
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded at a busy entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone today, killing two Iraqi soldiers and one civilian and wounding seven people, an Interior Ministry official reported. The gate, one of several leading into the zone, had been targeted before. In July, insurgents launched a dramatic triple attack involving a suicide car bomb and two suicide bombers on foot.
Today's military offensive in western Anbar Province was aimed at Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and was intended "to free the local citizens from the insurgents' campaign of murder and intimidation," according to a statement issued by the Second Marine Division, which is leading the operation. The American command believes the group has been driven westward into the desert region, the longstanding heartland of the insurgency.
The Reuters news agency, quoting an unidentified local resident, reported that American and Iraqi forces began surrounding Haditha on Monday night and launched an aerial bombing campaign against a bridge and several homes believed to be used by militants. Soldiers, backed by tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, then conducted house-to-house searches, the news service reported.
In early August, the American command conducted a similar weeklong offensive in the area involving about 1,000 troops, but it registered only modest gains, including several small weapons seizures and the detention of about three dozen suspected insurgents.
The latest Anbar offensive came on a day of scattered violence around Iraq, including a gun battle that broke out in southern Baghdad between guerrillas and a combined force of Iraqi and American troops, officials said. More than three dozen insurgents were killed, wounded or detained in the fight, according to the American military.
In a separate clash, insurgents battled with Iraqi police commandos in Yousifyia, a town south of Baghdad, killing at least four commandos and wounding 12, an Interior Ministry official reported.
An Iraqi soldier was killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb south of Kirkuk today, according to Maj. Gen. Daham Al-Ubaidi of the Kirkuk Police Department. In a separate roadside bomb attack, a guard accompanying Gen. Abdul Aziz al-Mufti of the Iraqi Army was killed when the general's convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb on the road between Kirkuk and Tikrit, according to Capt. Firas Abdullah of the Rashad police station.
Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations for this article and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed from Kirkuk, Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?ei=5088&en=a11a2e56c638a4ef&ex=1286078400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
By KIRK SEMPLE
and ROBERT F. WORTH
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 4 - The United Nations said today that newly adopted rules for the coming Iraqi constitutional referendum appeared to violate accepted international standards for elections.
United Nations officials met in Baghdad with Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite political legislators who had quietly adopted the new rules on Sunday. The rule change would make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail and has infuriated many Sunni Arab political leaders who oppose the document.
Hussein al-Shahristani, the acting speaker of the National Assembly, said political leaders hoped to reach a resolution on the referendum rules and present it to legislators by Wednesday.
In the new rules, the legislators designated two different meanings for the word "voters" in a single passage where the word appears to mean the same thing. That set off accusations by Sunni Arab leaders and independent political figures that Shiite and Kurdish legislators were using an unfair double standard to achieve their goal of seeing the constitution passed.
"When there is a contradiction on two different interpretations within one text, that would become an issue," Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan, said in a news conference at the United Nations. He added, "Ultimately this will be a sovereign decision by the Iraqis, and it's up to the Iraqi National Assembly to decide on the appropriate electoral framework."
American officials in Iraq have made renewed efforts over the past week to broker changes to the text of the constitution in an effort to placate Sunni Arabs who widely oppose the document. But the new controversy on how to count votes in the referendum appeared to be impeding the American effort.
Time is also running short and millions of copies have already been printed under United Nations supervision.
"There are still discussions among different groups, but nothing has been presented to the National Assembly, and it is unlikely at this last minute that changes will be adopted," Mr. Shahristani said.
The constitutional struggle unfolded as about 2,500 American and Iraqi troops began a major military offensive today along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad, the latest attempt by the American command to root out insurgents who have used the river corridor to smuggle fighters and weapons from the Syrian border to the center of the country.
The sweep, focusing on the river towns of Haditha, Haqlaniya and Barwana in Anbar Province, is only the latest in a series of large-scale operations designed to choke off insurgent supply routes in the region. Past efforts have scored only limited gains as insurgents have largely melted away in the face of the offensives and returned once the troops have returned to their bases.
Military officials also announced today that five American troops were killed on Monday in three separate incidents. Three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Haqlaniya while conducting an operation in advance of the offensive in Anbar, officials said, and a Marine died in a roadside bomb near Qaim on the Syrian border where about 1,000 troops have been conducting a separate counterinsurgency sweep.
A fifth soldier died in a shooting near Taqaddum, a town close to Fallujah, though military officials did not explain the circumstances of the shooting or whether it was combat-related, friendly fire or self-inflicted.
The offensives along the Euphrates River corridor and the Syrian border come ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution and are in part intended to tame those regions to permit residents to vote. American and Iraqi military officials have warned that insurgents are likely to step up their campaign of violence as the vote approaches. Many Sunni Arabs oppose the constitution and sectarian tensions have sharpened in recent weeks as political leaders have taken public stands on the document.
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, used the holy month of Ramadan, which began today for most Sunnis and will begin on Wednesday for Shiites, to encourage his loyalists to step up their attacks on foreign forces. He called Ramadan "a month of serious work, jihad and initiative."
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded at a busy entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone today, killing two Iraqi soldiers and one civilian and wounding seven people, an Interior Ministry official reported. The gate, one of several leading into the zone, had been targeted before. In July, insurgents launched a dramatic triple attack involving a suicide car bomb and two suicide bombers on foot.
Today's military offensive in western Anbar Province was aimed at Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and was intended "to free the local citizens from the insurgents' campaign of murder and intimidation," according to a statement issued by the Second Marine Division, which is leading the operation. The American command believes the group has been driven westward into the desert region, the longstanding heartland of the insurgency.
The Reuters news agency, quoting an unidentified local resident, reported that American and Iraqi forces began surrounding Haditha on Monday night and launched an aerial bombing campaign against a bridge and several homes believed to be used by militants. Soldiers, backed by tanks, fighter jets and helicopters, then conducted house-to-house searches, the news service reported.
In early August, the American command conducted a similar weeklong offensive in the area involving about 1,000 troops, but it registered only modest gains, including several small weapons seizures and the detention of about three dozen suspected insurgents.
The latest Anbar offensive came on a day of scattered violence around Iraq, including a gun battle that broke out in southern Baghdad between guerrillas and a combined force of Iraqi and American troops, officials said. More than three dozen insurgents were killed, wounded or detained in the fight, according to the American military.
In a separate clash, insurgents battled with Iraqi police commandos in Yousifyia, a town south of Baghdad, killing at least four commandos and wounding 12, an Interior Ministry official reported.
An Iraqi soldier was killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb south of Kirkuk today, according to Maj. Gen. Daham Al-Ubaidi of the Kirkuk Police Department. In a separate roadside bomb attack, a guard accompanying Gen. Abdul Aziz al-Mufti of the Iraqi Army was killed when the general's convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb on the road between Kirkuk and Tikrit, according to Capt. Firas Abdullah of the Rashad police station.
Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations for this article and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed from Kirkuk, Iraq.