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String of car bombs kills 99 in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-30 16:45 The blasts left streets strewn with body parts and wounded as emergency
vehicles rushed in. The attackers detonated their explosives-packed cars within
minutes of each other, starting at 6:45 p.m. at the Masraf Street market, then
at nearby Bint al-Hassan Street, a major commercial avenue, said police Lt.
Ghafil Hassan.
Most of the 99 fatalities were civilians, though among the 124 wounded were
the police chief and four officers, said Dr. Qassim Hatam, the director of Balad
hospital.
In Washington, the top American commander in Iraq said Thursday that the
process of withdrawing U.S. troops depends greatly on the results of the
referendum and elections set to follow if the constitution passes.
"The next 75 days are going to be critical," Gen. George Casey told the U.S.
Senate Armed Services Committee.
But Sunni Arab success in rejecting the constitution would set back the
political process for months, prolonging Iraq's political instability.
Sunnis make up only 20 percent of the population, but they could defeat the
charter because of a loophole in voting rules: If two-thirds of voters in any
three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote "no," the referendum fails — even if an
overall majority approves. There are four provinces where Sunnis could
potentially cross that margin.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been shuttling between all
sides, trying to secure last-minute changes to the draft, which parliament
approved Sept. 18 after tough negotiations.
He has met rejections from Shiites and Kurds on some proposed changes, and
some Sunni officials said the proposals were still not enough.
According to Sunni officials, U.S. forces raided the Baghdad homes of Adnan
al-Dulaimi and Harith al-Obeidi, senior officials in the Conference for Iraq's
People, a prominent Sunni political group.
Al-Dulaimi, 73, said soldiers in tanks and Humvees broke into his home at
2:30 a.m., put him and his family in a guest room and searched the house,
arresting four of his bodyguards and confiscating weapons he said were licensed.
"It was if they were attacking a castle, not the home of a normal person who
advises Iraq's interim government and has called for reconciliation and
renounced sectarianism," said al-Dulaimi, an adviser to Iraq's president on
religious affairs.
Al-Dulaimi said the Americans were acting on a false tip that his bodyguards
had links to insurgents. The U.S. military said it conducted several raids in
neighborhoods where the leaders live but could not identify the homes involved.
Sunni leaders complain the constitution does not emphasize Iraq's unity and
Arab character. They say its federal system — which would allow Shiites in the
south and Kurds in the north to form mini-states — will leave Sunnis in a weak
middle region, cheated of oil resources.
Khalilzad met with the top Kurdish leaders, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
and Massoud Barzani, on Wednesday and conveyed three changes sought by Sunnis,
said Fuad Massoum, a Kurdish member of the constitutional commission.
Massoum said the changes concern: confirming the use of Arabic along with
Kurdish in the northern Kurdistan region; adding a clause stating that "Iraq is
a single nation, and the constitution guarantees its unity"; and allowing
parliament to alter the constitution by a two-thirds vote rather than requiring
a referendum.
Khalilzad presented the same proposals earlier Wednesday to Shiite leaders,
said Humam Hamoudi, the Shiite head of the constitutional committee.
Both Kurds and Shiites rejected the third proposal, Massoum and Hamoudi said.
The Kurds want the second proposal rephrased to "federal nation," though they
accept the first provision, Massoum said.
Even so, one of the main Sunni Arab parties, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said
that acceptance of all three changes would not be enough for some Sunni leaders.
Party official Nasser al-Ani said his side put forward 12 proposals,
including changes in the federal system that Shiites and Kurds have insisted
cannot be altered.
"If the American ambassador revealed only three of our 12 demands, this would
not be satisfactory," he said.
A U.S. official confirmed that Khalilzad was seeking "tweaks" in about a
half-dozen points in the draft "to maximize the public support." He said
agreement was closest on the use of Arabic in Kurdistan and on "Iraq's identity
as a nation state" but would not discuss the other points.
The changes "will absolutely help, because the Sunni Arabs' main concerns
have been the unity of Iraq," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the discussion.
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