BAGHDAD - Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamists prepared to force a constitution through parliament before a midnight Monday deadline but minority Sunnis vowed to vote it down in a referendum and warned of civil war.

President Bush, himself campaigning to quell growing disquiet at home over the costly military occupation of Iraq, has pressed hard for the U.S.-sponsored timetable to be respected and says it will help sap the Sunni Arab insurgency.

If they pass this constitution, then the rebellion will reach its peak.

Sunni delegate Hussein Shukur al-Falluji

With under an hour to the deadline, there was confusion over whether Sunni outrage might force parliament to grant a second week-long extension to negotiators. One Sunni delegate said he expected this when the Assembly convened shortly. But a Shi'ite representative said parliament would vote through the draft.

The draft prepared by Shi'ites and Kurds, assisted by U.S. diplomats but without Sunni involvement, gave ground to some of the once dominant minority's fears of Shi'ites and Kurds hiving off strong federal regions in the oil-rich north and south.

A text seen by Reuters defined Iraq as a "federal" republic. Details on the extent and mechanisms of autonomy would be worked out later, delegates involved in drafting the text said.

The draft also made Islam "a main source" of law in what seemed a compromise between Islamist Shi'ites and secular Kurds.

But Sunni Arabs, outraged at what they called a "breach of consensus," stood by a demand "federalism" be left out.

"We will campaign ... to tell both Sunnis and Shi'ites to reject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war," Soha Allawi, a Sunni Arab member of the drafting committee, told Reuters.

"If they pass this constitution, then the rebellion will reach its peak," said Sunni delegate Hussein Shukur al-Falluji.

But with parliament, where Shi'ites have a big majority, facing dissolution if no draft were adopted by midnight (2000 GMT), senior Shi'ites said the text would pass comfortably and be put to the nation, as scheduled, in a referendum by October 15.

SHI'ITE DETERMINATION

"An agreed draft of the constitution will be presented to parliament and we expect that it will meet with broad acceptance, including from the Sunnis," deputy parliamentary speaker Hussain al-Shahristani told Reuters.

Government television broadcast scenes of wild rejoicing at the news in the holy city of Najaf and other Shi'ite towns.

"We cannot wait and give them all the time they need to be convinced ... If our Sunni Arab brothers don't want to vote for federalism then they can reject it," said Jalal-el-Din al-Sagheer, a Shi'ite cleric on the constitutional committee.

Interim rules say the charter is rejected if two thirds of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against it.

Kurdish delegate Abdel Khalek Zangana said the provision on federalism satisfied Kurdish demands for guarantees they would retain the broad autonomy they already have in the north.

One Sunni leader said the text had dropped wording that forbade secession from Iraq; Kurdish leaders say they do not want to break away entirely but want to keep the option open.

U.S. diplomats, led by ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, architect of the new Afghan constitution, have been working hard to save the deadline. Secular Kurdish delegates had complained that he had made concessions to the Shi'ite Islamists in allowing for a greater role for Islam in Iraqi law.

The draft document, seen in part by Reuters, described Iraq as a "republican, parliamentarian, democratic and federal" state. It also said, in general terms, that natural resources would be controlled jointly by central and local government.

Members of smaller religious and ethnic minorities said they were worried they were not mentioned by name as Iraqi peoples.

SUNNI MOBILIZATION

In former rebel strongholds like Falluja and across the Sunni heartlands of the north and west, which largely shunned the January polls that produced the Shi'ite and Kurd-dominated interim legislature, voters have been registering in numbers.

Some Shi'ites, notably supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, with a strong following in resource-poor central Iraq, also reject federalism and have campaigned for "Iraqi unity."

With discontent spreading at the failure of the present government to curb violence or improve living standards, rival parties see a chance to embarrass it at the polls.

If the referendum ratifies the constitution, voting in December will be for a full-term parliament with full powers.

Though portrayed in Washington as a key test of Iraq's cohesion and ability to overcome the threat of civil war, there is little sign even clinching a deal will ease the bloodshed.

Gunmen killed 10 people, including eight policemen, driving a minivan north of Baghdad on Monday. Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a bomb attack near Samarra, north of Baghdad.

But analysts have said a diversion of energies into politics among the wider Iraqi Sunni community could weaken the local, nationalist insurgency that is pinning down U.S. troops.

© 2005 Reuters

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