World

A New Law For Iraq

March 5, 2004 / 9:03 AM EST / CBS/AP

Militants fired mortar rounds at the airport and two roadside bombs exploded Friday, hours ahead of a signing ceremony for the country's interim constitution, a key landmark in U.S. plans to hand over power to Iraqis by June 30. No injuries were reported.

The signing of the document, scheduled for Friday afternoon amid tight security, was delayed for nearly a week — first by tough negotiations among members of the Iraqi Governing Council that went beyond a Feb. 28 deadline, then by a three-day mourning period following two suicide attacks Tuesday that killed scores of Shiite pilgrims on the holy day of Ashoura.

In other developments:

The U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch criticized the interim constitution, saying it does not do enough to protect women's rights, particularly in the area of family law.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has asked the White House to give the president's commission on Iraq intelligence subpoena power, The Hill reports. So far, the Bush administration has refused.

Before the was, the White House claimed Saddam Hussein was working on mobile labs to make biological weapons. According to The Washington Post, that claim was based on a single defector never interviewed by U.S. agents.

Private Russian scientists may have assisted Iraq's illegal ballistic missile program as late as 2001, The New York Times reports.

A majority of people living in the two countries bordering the United States and in five major European countries — Britain, Italy, Germany, France and Spain — say they think the war in Iraq increased the threat of terrorism in the world, Associated Press polls found. Americans were evenly divided on whether the war has increased or decreased the terror threat.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that governments could not "err on the side of caution" when dealing with threat of global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, as he passionately defended his decision to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The United States will transfer sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 — though it has yet to be decided how to pick the government that will take power. U.S. troops, however, will only gradually transfer security duties to Iraqi police and civil defense.

The interim constitution will guide whatever government takes over on June 30.

The top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and chief British representative Jeremy Greenstock mediated with council members through the night in a marathon session that sealed the deal around dawn Monday. Compromises were struck on some of the toughest issues, particularly the role of Islam and federalism.

The draft recognizes Islam as a source of legislation. In a concession to religious conservatives who wanted Islam to be the main source, it also states that no law will be passed that violates the tenets of the Muslim religion.

It also accepts the principle of federalism but leaves it to a future elected national assembly to decide the details of self-rule for Iraq's Kurdish minority.

Delegates hammered out a system that would allow any of Iraq's 18 provinces to form federal regions — a provision opening the door for Shiites to form a self-rule region in the south similar to the Kurds' region in the north.

"We can offer our people a law capable of running this country," Governing Council member Mahmoud Othman, a Sunni Muslim Kurd, told Al Arabiya television before the signing. "The law is Iraqi, drafted by Iraqis and agreed on by Iraqis. The Americans had ideas and suggestions, but it's an Iraqi draft. Whoever sees the laws will see this is the work of Iraqis."

The charter does not specifically guarantee women's rights in marriage and divorce, equal inheritance or the right to pass their Iraqi citizenship to their children if they are married to foreigners, it said.

"The interim constitution should explicitly guarantee these rights," said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

Tuesday's bombings of Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Karbala raised the specter of sectarian war. The Governing Council said 271 people were killed in the attacks, while the U.S. coalition said 181 people were killed and another 573 were wounded.

U.S. and Iraqi officials blamed Tuesday's attacks on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected anti-U.S. militant with ties to al Qaeda. The Jordanian extremist is the alleged author of a letter to the al Qaeda leadership that calls for attacks against the Shiite majority to draw them into a civil war against Iraq's Sunni Arabs who have long oppressed Shiites.

A letter from purported insurgents, however, claims al-Zarqawi is dead. And some Iraqi Shiites disagree point to homegrown Wahhabis — followers of a creed that equates Shiites with non-Muslims.

Wahhabism, born in the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century, is among the most ultraconservative brands of Islam. Taking its name from founder Mohammed Abdel-Wahab, it advocates a purist and rigid interpretation of Islam that condones the killing of Muslims who do not follow its teachings.

It's the official creed of Saudi Arabia's powerful religious leadership and has followers in several Muslim nations, including Iraq, Yemen and Qatar. Muslim groups with similar ideologies are found elsewhere. Throughout the Islamic world, Muslims use the term "Wahhabist" to describe the kind of Muslims that Westerners call "fundamentalist."

In Najaf, meanwhile, police Maj. Mohammed Dayekh said Thursday an Iraqi member of al-Zarqawi's network had confessed he and four other Iraqis were involved in the Karbala bombing. The U.S. military command said it was unaware of the purported confession by Mohammed Hanoun Hmood al-Mozani.

Fifteen other suspects — including five Farsi speakers, believed to be Iranian — were being questioned.