US officials scrambled Tuesday to keep Iraq's political process on track despite a deadlock in drafting a new constitution that clouded Washington's hopes for an exit strategy after 29 months of war.
Washington sought to play down the failure of Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni negotiators to reach agreement on a new charter by Monday's deadline and applauded their request for a seven-day extension.
President George W. Bush lauded the Iraqis' "heroic efforts" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed confidence the extension would not disrupt the political calendar.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad who has worked feverishly to nail down an agreement, told Fox News television Tuesday he was "disappointed" the deadline was not met.
But he added, "It's an important thing for the Iraqis to get this right. We don't do constitutions every day. And they will succeed. They need a few more days - perfectly, perfectly understandable."
Others were more alarmed by the hitch in drafting the constitution, which according to Iraq's interim law must be submitted to a referendum by October 15 ahead of elections for a permanent government two months later.
"Hopefully it is a bump in the road. But it's a major, major bump," Senator Jospeh Biden, an influential Democrat in Congress on foreign policy issues, told Fox News.
The US administration badly needed to maintain the political momentum in Iraq to counter an insurgency which has sent the US death toll climbing and support for the war here plummeting.
A political impasse could also further cloud chances for withdrawing the 138,000 US troops in Iraq at a time when the White House is coming under pressure to set a timetable.
"There's a race here, a race between getting the Iraqis in the position to defend themselves and the American people wanting to stay in support and keep troops there," Biden said on NBC television.
The administration had previously refused to put back the deadline for the constitution for fear of disrupting the political momentum in Iraq.
Bush said last week that a constitution "can be and should be agreed upon by August 15th," while Rice had made a mantra of stressing the Iraqis had so far met every deadline.
But with the majority Shiites, Kurdish and Sunnis still stalemated over federalism and the role of Islam, US officials remained relentlessly upbeat.
"I applaud the heroic efforts of Iraqi negotiators and appreciate their work to resolve remaining issues through continued negotiation and dialogue," Bush said in a statement.
"Iraqi leaders have announced that they have made substantial progress toward a draft constitution," Bush said. "Their efforts are a tribute to democracy and an example that difficult problems can be solved peacefully."
Rice also waxed enthusiastic about the work of the drafting committee seeking to nail down a constitution 28 months after US-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein.
She told a news conference that the Iraqis were making headway on many of the difficult issues before them and "have generated considerable momentum toward the completion of their constitution."
Rice said the request for an extension of the deadline to present the charter to parliament was "in full accordance" with interim law adopted last year to end the US occupation.
"We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq," she said. "We are confident that they will complete this process and continue on the path toward elections for a permanent government at the end of the year."
Failure by the constitutional committee to agree on a text would require dissolution of the transitional parliament and a vote on a new assembly which some said could be a recipe for political chaos.
But Rice was adamant that the negotiators would not let it come to that.
"I believe they are going to finish this," she said. "I think that they are very much focused on a course that will bring this to conclusion at the end of seven days."
The chief US diplomat also rejected suggestions the Shiites and the Kurds could ram through a constitution over the objections of minority Sunnis, whose discontent has fuelled the insurgency.
"They (the negotiators) got unanimous consent of the national assembly to continue their work. That suggests that that's how they want this process to work, not to go around some particular group," Rice said.
Comments
Comments are closed.