Iraqis Finish Draft Charter That Sunnis Vow to Defeat

The Sunnis submitted additional demands Saturday, and negotiations ended.

If the referendum succeeds, the document will become the new Iraq's founding charter. If two-thirds majorities in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it, a new parliament, to be elected in December, will begin the drafting process anew.

Speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., President Bush, who with other U.S. officials had urged that the document be completed, called the draft "a document of which the Iraqis and the rest of the world can be proud."

U.S. and Iraqi officials have long maintained that participation in the political process by Sunnis -- who largely boycotted national elections in January and are believed to make up the bulk of the insurgency -- was crucial to establishing stability that would allow for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Military commanders had predicted a spike in insurgent attacks at the culmination of the constitution-writing process, but Sunday was relatively quiet across much of the country.

In Baghdad, however, U.S. troops killed Waleed Khaled, a sound technician for the Reuters news agency, and wounded a Reuters cameraman when they opened fire on the journalists' vehicle, the agency reported. The incident is under investigation, the military said.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, at a news conference, said the draft constitution "provides a vision for the future, one based on democratic values and Iraqi tradition. It is a good document."

Khalilzad said he was disappointed by the negative reaction from Sunnis but attributed it in part to threats against them. "You heard some of them say that they like the document, but if they openly support it, their lives could be at risk," he said.

In a remark unusual for a U.S. ambassador in the Arab world, Khalilzad compared the Iraqi draft constitution's personal status law to Israel's, saying that both allow men and women a choice of civil and religious legal options in matters of marriage and divorce.

All sides involved in the negotiations said the stakes would be high in the referendum. Sunnis have reportedly been registering to vote in large numbers, encouraged by the same leaders who urged them to boycott the January elections.

"We will not stay on the sideline this time, and I think we can make the constitution fail in Anbar, Salahuddin, Nineveh and Diyala," said Jabouri, referring to four provinces where Sunnis are believed to be a majority.

Ali Dabbagh, a Shiite member of the constitutional committee, expressed concern that violence could result if Sunni attempts to block the document failed. "We are ready for the referendum and we will win," he said. If the Sunnis "feel they are outside of Iraq and want to cause problems, that is up to them."

Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat and an adviser to the Kurds, said that if the referendum failed, the Kurds might push for full independence from Iraq.

"If this constitution is rejected, the next negotiations are going to be about the partition of the country," he said.

As word spread that the draft had been completed, al-Iraqiya television played a music video of celebrations in the streets with lyrics proclaiming that "the constitution of the people is in the hands of the people now."

About 250 people gathered on the banks of the Euphrates River in the southern Shiite city of Kufa, beating drums, waving Iraqi flags and chanting "go die Baathists" and "yes, yes for the constitution." Sunni areas, where several large protests against the constitution had taken place in recent days, were largely quiet.

Correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer and special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Naseer Nouri contributed to this report.