U.S. Calls for Sunni and Kurdish Rights After Turnover

March 25, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS

European Pressphoto Agency
A major oil pipeline in Fao in southern Iraq ruptured on Tuesday, spilling oil that caught fire and sent out vast plumes of smoke. The rupture was caused by poor maintenance, according to the occupation authority.


BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 24 — Faced with a top Shiite cleric's demands for majority rule that would dilute Sunni and Kurdish rights in an independent Iraq, the head of the American occupation, L. Paul Bremer III, delivered a strong argument on Wednesday for the American insistence on a democratic system that protects minority rights.

"Democracy entails not just majority rule, but protection of minority rights," Mr. Bremer said at an outdoor ceremony to mark the 100-day countdown to the dissolution of the occupation authority and the return of sovereignty to Iraq. Attending were Iraqi leaders who have worked closely with the Americans since a United States-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government nearly a year ago.

"For Iraq to regain its prosperity and strength it must remain united," he said. "And that unity requires that the interests of all Iraqis be accommodated. In a country as broad and diverse as Iraq it is not possible for every interest to have all it wants."

The United States has held firm to the June 30 handover date, even as attacks on Iraqis working with Westerners have increased. On Wednesday, an Iraqi translator working for Time magazine was shot and wounded in his car on his way to work in the Baghdad suburb of Mansour. A gunman who drew alongside fired a volley of bullets, striking him four times, American officials said. He was listed in critical condition at an American hospital. The attack was the latest in a series of attacks on Iraqis working for Western news organizations.

In other attacks confirmed by the American command on Wednesday, three Iraqi civilians were killed and two American soldiers were wounded when a military convoy was ambushed with roadside bombs and small-arms fire shortly after midnight Wednesday near the restive town of Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad. The incident followed a night of violence in the area that began with a drive-by shooting at dusk on Tuesday in which a man described by the command as a foreign security guard and a child were killed.

Troubled infrastructure also bedevils the country. In Fao, in southern Iraq, a major oil pipeline ruptured, spilling oil that caught fire and sent out vast plumes of dark smoke. The rupture was caused by poor maintenance, according to the occupation authority, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

On the political front, Mr. Bremer has worked through months of shadow-boxing with Shiite clerics who command the allegiance of millions of Iraqis, always avoiding direct confrontation, addressing the clerics only with careful deference.

In Wednesday's speech, he made no mention of the cleric he was indirectly addressing, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has emerged as Iraq's decisive power broker. From his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf, where he has refused to meet with Mr. Bremer or any American emissary, Ayatollah Sistani has issued a volley of political demands on behalf of the country's Shiite majority. The demands come in contrast to his espousal of a "quietist" school of religious thought opposed to direct clerical intervention in politics.

On Monday, Mr. Sistani's aides released a letter to the United Nations in which he spoke of "dangerous consequences" if United Nations mediators endorsed the American-sponsored interim constitution that will operate when sovereignty is transferred.

The cleric warned that the interim constitution approved by the Governing Council two weeks ago "enjoys no support among the Iraqi people." and said that it set the stage for ethnic and sectarian strife with its elaborate guarantees for the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Shiites account for about 60 per cent of Iraq's 25 million people.

Mr. Bremer used the Wednesday ceremony for the 100-day countdown as a morale-boosting exercise, ticking off a checklist of the occupation's accomplishments.

Iraq has more electrical power, he said, a new currency that has gained nearly 30 per cent in value, a vast increase in health spending, and the prospect of nearly $19 billion in reconstruction funds voted by the United States Congress last year.

"At liberation, this great country had been reduced to a shell, not by war, not by invasion, but by almost four decades of relentless greed and cruelty by its leaders," he said. "Instead of investing in Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam's regime squandered and stole the nation's wealth.

"Instead of serving his citizens, Saddam deprived them of access to essential services. When liberation came, water, electricity, sewage, schools and much more were a shambles. When liberation came, not a single policeman was on duty in Iraq, and the army had disappeared.

"What a difference a year can make in the life of the Iraqi people."

But in large part, Mr. Bremer's speech focused on rebuffing the Shiite political demands.

Calling on Iraqis to salute the Governing Council members — Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds and Turkmen and Assyrians — who hammered out the interim constitution — under American supervision — Mr. Bremer said they represented "many different traditions and communities," with "distinct desires and expectations."

"Of course, all those expectations did not match up perfectly," he said. "The great work of the Governing Council" he said, was realizing that "they could be made to fit together in a harmonious whole if they were adjusted."

"This," he said, "is the true essence of democracy."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company