Road to Iraqi Charter Far Rockier Than Expected

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Since the early days of the occupation, the United States has aimed for a democratic constitution to serve the interests of all Iraq's ethnic and religious groups. Getting one has proven tough. The tortured process, now approaching a climactic stage, has been marked by false starts, overblown optimism and miscalculations over the depth of suspicion and hatred in a religiously, ethnically and culturally mixed society deeply wounded by Saddam Hussein's rule. Time and time again, as the Americans tried to accommodate one Iraqi group, they ended up offending another. Often, plans crafted by the White House and promoted by well-tailored emissaries in Baghdad's hermetic Green Zone have collapsed after a few utterances by turbaned, reclusive Shiite Muslim clerics in dusty Najaf.

Then Secretary of State Colin Powell said in September 2003 that the United States would set a deadline of six months for Iraqi leaders to produce a permanent constitution. In a sense that deadline was met - but only with an interim charter hammered out under U.S. pressure and after numerous policy changes forced on Washington. When the occupation began in May 2003, the United States and its allies wanted a constitution drafted as soon as possible, in part to deflect pressure from France, Arab states and others to quickly end foreign control of Iraq.

Washington wanted United Nations blessing for its operation in Iraq as part of a now-abandoned Bush administration plan to bring other countries into the reconstruction effort, share the costs and spread responsibility if things went sour. Powell assured U.N. diplomats that the United States had no plans for a long-term occupation of Iraq and had a strategy to transfer power to Iraqis as soon as possible. Central to that strategy was a new constitution. But how to draft it?

Initially, the Americans wanted a panel of experts to take on the job but had no easy formula for selecting them. Holding an election so soon after the invasion did not seem feasible in a country with no electoral infrastructure and no accurate voter lists. Furthermore, the United States and European Union believed they had made a mistake in the 1990s by pushing the new Balkans nations into elections so soon after conflict. The very extremists who pushed those societies into war ended up elected, since no other leaders had emerged. U.S. officials worried Saddam's loyalists might "hijack" Iraq's democratic process.

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