But but but I thought Iraq was a disaster? I thought there would never be a constitution? I thought it’s all Bush’s fault?
Yup, the fact that 25 million Iraqi’s are now living free and will be living in a Country with a constitution soon is Bush’s fault. Damn him!
Iraqis Reach Deal on the Constitution 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Iraqi leaders reached a breakthrough deal on last minute changes in the constitution Tuesday, and at least one Sunni Arab party said it would reverse its rejection of the document and urge its supporters to approve it in next weekend’s referendum.
The deal boosts the chances for a constitution that Shiite and Kurdish leaders support and the United States has been eager to see approved in Saturday’s vote to avert months more of political turmoil, delaying plans to start a withdrawal of U.S. forces.
U.S. officials have pushed the three days of negotiations between Shiite and Kurdish leaders in the government and Sunni Arab officials, that concluded with marathon talks at the house of President Jalal Talabani late Tuesday.
The sides agreed to a measure stating that if the draft constitution is passed, the next parliament will be able to consider amendments to it that would then be put to a new referendum next year, Shiite and Sunni officials said.
A top Sunni negotiator, Ayad al-Samarraie of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that if the current parliament approves the measure, “we will stop the campaign rejecting the constitution and we will call on Sunni Arabs to vote yes.”
Some other major Sunni parties were not present at the negotiations and it was not clear if they too would be willing to reverse their “no” campaigns.
But the announcement was the first break in the ranks of Sunni Arab leaders, who have been campaigning hard to defeat the constitution at the polls.
Ali al-Dabagh, a Shiite negotiator, said the sides agreed on adding four articles to the draft.
The central addition allows the next parliament, which will be formed in Dec. 15 elections, to form a commission that will have four months to consider changes to the constitution. The changes would be approved by the entire parliament, then a referendum would be held two months later.
Sunni Arabs are hoping to have a stronger representation in the next parliament and want to make major amendments to the constitution, particularly to water down the provisions for federalism, which Shiites and Kurds strongly support.
The other additions include a statement stressing Iraqi unity and another states that the Arabic language should be used in the Kurdistan region, along with Kurdish ? issues important to the Sunni Arabs. The fourth underlines that former members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted, Sunni-led Baath Party will only be prosecuted if they committed crimes.
Some moderate Sunni leaders once had positions in the Baath Party and fear being barred from politics by the De-Baathification process outlined in the constitution.
“The leaders of the political blocs have approved these additions and amendments and tomorrow they will be announced (read) to the national assembly,” al-Dabagh said.
But still we hear the lefts mantra “things were so much better back when Saddam gave the Iraqi people the gift of stability under his wise rule.”
The left has always underestimated the power of democracy and dialogue? We wouldn’t be here if we had left things to the “stability” option of enabling tyrants and looking the other way.
A few Talabani quotes is appropiate here I believe:
“those who preferred the stability of mass graves to liberation……”
“… those who attack mosques and churches, who murder schoolchildren and labourers, who behead foreigners and who kidnap humanitarian workers are not engaged in ?resistance?. Those sabotaging Iraq?s first democracy bear no resemblance to the resistors of foreign occupation in wartime Europe. Rather, they are, in their ideology and record, contemporary representatives of the fascism that wreaked such havoc 60 years ago in Europe. They are supremacists and racists, as worthy of our contempt as those who practised apartheid in South Africa.”
and
“Of course the liberation of Iraq has been controversial, as all wars should be.
Sadly in this case, war was not the ?best? option, it was the only option.
Under Saddam, war was never controversial, never discussed, simply ordered and executed by him and his thugs.
Iraqis sometimes wonder in amazement what the debate abroad is about. Why do people continue to ask why no WMD was found?
The truth is that Saddam had, in the past, used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, and we believed he would do so again.
Of course Saddam himself was, in the view of those who opposed him, Iraq?s most dangerous WMD. “
But the left still call’s this an unjust war. Providing freedom to those who have only known dictatorship is unjust in their eyes. Protecting our country against a known terrorist collaborator is unjust. Ensuring that our enemy abides by the cease fire they signed is unjust. P A T H E T I C.
It’s exciting watching this country grow into a Democracy, and to know our great Country helped provide it.
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