Bargain Sought on Iraqi Charter A Week Ahead of Historic Vote

But if no breakthroughs are made, it appears Sunnis will reject the constitution. Sunni politicians and clerics in Baghdad and elsewhere have called on worshipers either to boycott the referendum or to turn out to vote down the proposed charter. "Close ranks!" called out a cleric over mosque loudspeakers in a heavily Sunni Baghdad neighborhood late this week. "Go out, and say 'no' to this mongrel constitution."

Echoing that message are Sunni politicians, frustrated at the few gains achieved from their belated agreement to enter the political process for the first time since the U.S.-led routing of Saddam Hussein.

"We agreed to do all we can to challenge the draft in a constitutional way," Hussein Falluji, a Sunni on the National Assembly's constitutional committee, said Saturday night at a meeting in which he and other Sunni leaders in Baghdad decided to tell their followers to vote against the referendum rather than boycott. "Now it is up to the people to say 'no' to the draft."

For their part, Shiite and Kurdish leaders have agreed to compromise language sought by Sunni Arabs that would call the country the "Arab and Muslim nation in Iraq," a Shiite negotiator in the talks, Saad Jawad Qandeel, said Saturday.

Shiites have also agreed to a clause emphasizing Iraq's unity "in its soil, its nation and its sovereignty," in a bid to allay Sunni charges that federalism would split Iraq, Qandeel said. The third and last concession agreed to since the official end to talks, stipulates that Arabic would be declared one of the official languages of the heavily Kurdish north, he said.

The last-minute changes would announced to voters through TV and newspapers, said Qandeel, a member of the National Assembly committee charged with writing the charter.

Shiite negotiators had no intention of giving ground on remaining major issues, Qandeel said, especially federalism or language critical of Hussein's Sunni-led Baath Party.

Sunni politicians say the political impasse has provided them with no leverage to change the minds of insurgent groups that have rejected the political process. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government and security forces, believing some Sunni political and religious leaders have close ties to the fighters, have shown a propensity to crack down on Sunni political parties. Saleh Mutlak, a hard-line Sunni negotiator, said Iraqi soldiers have raided the Baghdad headquarters of the Sunnis' National Dialogue Council offices twice in the past week, once shooting one of his bodyguards in the lung.

"We are in a very difficult position. If we reject the constitution, they say we are with the resistance. But even by sitting at the table, our lives can be threatened by the groups who are fighting the government. How do you campaign in a situation like this?" Mutlak said.

For many Sunnis, Saturday's referendum will mark their first foray into Iraq's post-invasion politics. In a move some Sunni leaders have said they now regret, their parties largely boycotted last January's legislative elections, leaving them underrepresented in the National Assembly and powerless in the face of a determined Shiite Muslim and Kurdish coalition government.

Grass-roots campaigning has begun in Sunni strongholds across Iraq. In Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, in Iraq's restive west, the bazaar was plastered Saturday with posters declaring voters will "take down the constitution by our pens as we defeat you by our rifles." Others, taking the opposite stand, declared: "Participating in the referendum means betraying religion and country."

In a more ominous message, signs warned residents, "Spare your life and the lives of your sons by avoiding the Zionist-American constitution centers."

Internet statements attributed to Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, this summer pledged to kill anyone who took part in the elections. Three Sunni activists working to register voters in Ramadi were shot to death, and their bodies shown in a get-out-the-vote poster.

Ramadi residents said the threat of insurgent attacks on the day of the vote, as well as security measures designed to protect against them, could prevent many people from turning out. The National Dialogue Council said it has collected hundreds of thousands of signatures from Sunnis opposed to the constitution, which it intends to use as evidence that voting was too difficult in Sunni areas, if the constitution passes with few Sunnis turning out.

"The problem is that people don't trust U.S. and Iraqi forces," said Ihsan Abdul Wahid Kubaisi, 42, a high school teacher. "They don't believe that they could protect them on the referendum day."

In a concern echoed by U.S. and Iraqi officials, Mutlak and other Sunni leaders said they feared that if the referendum fails, Sunnis could decide they had been wrong to think peaceful means could help their lot.

"Maybe the worst thing for everyone is if it passes and the vote is close. You will see the violence rise if people start to think, 'What is in this politics for me?' " said Mutlak.

Wright reported from Washington. Correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer and special correspondent Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad contributed to this report.