Iraq’s ‘constitution’

Pentagon generals sent a clear message on what the Oct. 15 referendum on an Iraqi constitution really meant when two days later they ordered the bombing of the city of Ramadi from the air. Seventy "insurgents" were killed, they claimed. But local witnesses on the ground said the U.S. bombs had murdered 39 civilians.

The contrast between "spin" and reality was all too clear. The vote was stage-managed and reported through a controlled media. A "constitution" with no legitimacy was being imposed by force on an occupied nation through an obviously fraudulent vote.

Now even the puppet government has had to delay announcing the results a do a recount to try to make the inflated vote count look believable.

The Iraqi resistance is still there, however, and the war remains one between the Iraqi people and the U.S. occupiers. In the Pentagon's judgment, only one battalion in the Iraqi army is able to fight without U.S. backup--out of 119. A battalion is 750 troops. (UPI, Oct. 3) The Pentagon now has 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and the war is costing almost $6 billion a month.

It is possible to take the draft constitution apart line by line and show that it is reactionary when compared to the existing Iraqi constitution. But the truth is that no matter what the new constitution says, and no matter how many collaborators agree to it, it is completely illegitimate. It is impossible to develop a sovereign constitution under an armed occupation.

First the occupation troops must leave.

On top of this, the occupation forces were carrying out bombings, invasions and other military operations in the days before the vote. The most intense attacks were in those provinces where the population was most actively against the new constitution. No one was allowed to drive cars, there was a curfew, and in these provinces the few polling places were spread far apart.

The armed groups fighting the occupation all consider this "constitution" illegitimate. According to an article published in the Spanish newspaper Rebelión on Oct. 17, "Sunni sources who asked not to be identified asserted that 16 Sunni armed organizations resisting the occupation reached an agreement to suspend their attacks on the day of the vote to allow their community to participate in the referendum and succeed in rejecting the Charter."

The same article quotes Saleh al-Mutlaq, spokesperson for the Council of National Dialog Party, who warns of a possible fraud concerning the counting of the vote. He says that 1,600 of his party's observers assigned throughout the country indicated that 95 percent of Sunni Arabs who voted said they were against the Charter. "I believe that it will help neither the U.S. nor the Iraqis to impose this constitution against the popular will."

"We warn of the risks that if the results of the vote are falsified and [the constitution] is imposed by force, this will generate reactions impossible to contain," Mutlaq added.

Voting fraud

Al-Mutlaq, wrote Al Jazeera, said that "the manager of one of the polling stations in a Kurdish district of Diyala told him that 39,000 votes were cast, although only 36,000 voters were registered there" and also that "soldiers broke into a polling station in Baquba and took ballot boxes heavy with 'no' votes; later results showed a 'yes' majority."

"Bottom line, we can say that the whole operation witnessed interference from government forces," he said.

In provinces where the parties in control are collaborating with the occupation, the "yes" votes were reported to be as high as 97 percent of the total. Even the puppet government knows no one believes this is real.

None of this stopped Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from celebrating the triumph of the "yes" vote a few hours after the polls closed, or stopped George Bush from hailing the "victory." But the days are gone when he can do a photo-op before a "Mission Accomplished" sign and convince even the people at home, let alone in Iraq.

According to a Pew poll in mid-October, Bush's job approval rating had dropped to 38 percent. The polls also showed that 53 percent told Pew that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is not going well, while half say the decision to invade in the first place was wrong--up from 44 percent in September. An opinion poll by the NBC television network and The Wall Street Journal revealed that, among the African-American population, only 2 percent approve of Bush's performance--the lowest level ever for Black people here.

Attempt to split up Iraq

The attempt to pass this latest version of the "constitution" also shows that Washington is orienting more and more toward splitting Iraq into three parts. Unable to conquer the Iraqi people with an occupation army, U.S. strategists are aiming instead to punish the Iraqis by creating a scenario for civil war.

Most Iraqis didn't get a chance to read the proposed charter. Of those who did, it was only days before the vote. But anyone who did read it or parts of it could see the following:

* It allows, even encourages, development of Iraqi oil fields by foreign oil monopolies, unlike the old constitution, which mandates holding on to the oil reserves for the economic development of Iraq.

* It encourages autonomous development of the northern, mostly Kurdish region, with access to oil reserves there. It does the same to the mostly Shiite region in the South, which also has access to oil reserves. It leaves the mid-section of the country, including Baghdad--which is both Shiite and Sunni--and the provinces to the west that are the most strongly resisting occupation, with almost no access to future oil reserves.

While religious differences among the mostly secular Iraqis had been minimal in the past, a constitution that connects these differences so closely to control of wealth and power is obviously a recipe for civil war. This restructuring of Iraq would be another crime to add to the list of those carried out by U.S. imperialism against the Iraqi people.

Progressive and anti-war forces throughout the world can only continue to work to end the illegal occupation of Iraq as soon as possible and thereby give Iraqi parties an opportunity to avoid such an outcome.

One other point on the so-called constitution: anyone who thought a U.S. occupation of Iraq would bring more rights to women, more democracy, more freedom from religious authority, must be sorely disillusioned. In all these areas the constitution, if enforced, marks a step backward from that of Baathist-led Iraq.