BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi negotiators finished the country's new constitution Sunday without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs who helped prepare it, dealing a blow to the Bush administration and setting the stage for a bitter campaign leading up to an October referendum.\nThe 15 members of the Sunni panel said they rejected the document because of disagreements over such issues as federalism, Iraq's identity and references to Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.\nSunni Arab negotiators also said in a joint statement they had asked the United Nations and Arab League to intervene.\nThe document, which included last-minute changes aimed at easing Sunni concerns, was read to lawmakers. It was not put to a vote in the assembly, where the Shiite-Kurdish bloc has an overwhelming majority.\n"The constitution is left to our people to approve or reject it," President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said at a ceremony marking the document's completion. "I hope that our people will accept it despite some flaws."\nTalabani acknowledged the Sunni Arabs had objections to the draft "but everybody had reservations. This is part of democracy ... If the people do not approve it, we will draft another constitution."\nHajim al-Hassani, the Sunni Arab speaker of the legislature, was not present, but deputy speaker Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite, told reporters that the speaker agreed with all parts of the draft and had "other appointments."\nAl-Hassani played a major role in the final negotiations on the charter, which now goes to the Iraqi people in an Oct. 15 referendum.\nTechnically, no vote was required by parliament. At one time, officials wanted a vote as an affirmation of unity between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, but that idea was shelved because of Sunni objections to the document and repeated delays in finalizing the draft.\nSheik Humam Hammoudi, chairman of the drafting committee, said the constitution "guarantees freedoms and equalizes between everyone, women and men and different ethnic groups and respects the ideologies of this nation and the religion of this society."\nBut the 15-member Sunni negotiating team immediately rejected the document, which it called "illegitimate."\n"We call upon the Arab League, the United Nations and international organizations to intervene so that this document is not passed and so that the clear defect in it is corrected," said the statement read by Abdul-Nasser al-Janabi.\nA top Sunni negotiator, Saleh al-Mutlaq, told Alhurra Television that all opponents of the constitution will hold a conference to decide their next move. He gave no date.\n"Now we will move to a general conference that includes all groups that did not take part in the (Jan. 30) elections to take a decision," he told the U.S.-funded station.\nAl-Mutlaq said earlier the Sunni negotiators would not sign off on the final draft because of objections to provisions that allegedly threaten Iraqi unity -- particularly federalism -- and fail to affirm the country's Arab identity. The draft refers to Iraq as an Islamic -- but not Arab -- country as the Sunnis demanded.\n"I think if this constitution passes as it is, it will worsen \neverything in the country," he said.\nAt the same time, al-Mutlaq urged all Iraqis to refrain from violence.\nAnother top Sunni negotiator, Mohammed Abed-Rabbou, said the Sunni team refused to endorse the draft because "points of disagreement" were not amended, including proposals to transform Iraq into a federated country and references to Saddam's party.\nThe comments set the stage for a bitter political battle before the October referendum, when Iraqis will decide whether to accept or reject the document. Five million copies of the constitution will be circulated nationwide in food allotments each Iraqi family receives monthly from the government.\nSunnis account for only 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, but they are in a strong position to derail the constitution. If two-thirds of voters in any three provinces reject the charter, the constitution will be defeated. Sunnis have the majority in at least four provinces.\nAfter two months of talks, negotiators for the Shiite-Kurd bloc and the Sunnis remained divided over such fundamental issues as:
-- Whether Iraq should be turned into a federal state or decentralized by granting more power to provincial authorities;
-- How the country's oil wealth will be divided;
-- Whether Baath Party members should be purged from government; and
-- Whether Iraq will be considered an Arab or Islamic nation.
The deadlock came despite frantic U.S. efforts to secure a political consensus that hopefully would deliver a massive vote for the charter -- taking the steam out of the Sunni-led insurgency and enabling a withdrawal of U.S. troops to start next year.\nU.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met with various negotiators and al-Hassani late Saturday trying to broker wording acceptable to the Sunnis.\nKhalilzad told CNN's "Late Edition" that while the Sunnis did not get everything they wanted in the constitution, neither did the other blocs.\n"None of the communities are 100 percent happy with the draft," he said. "A constitution is not a party platform. It's a common road map."\nSunni leaders said their people should oppose the charter peacefully by voting "no" in the referendum.\n"The (Sunni) bloc should now convene a general conference to decide how to proceed," Sadoun Zubaydi said. "Boycotting the referendum and parliamentary elections (in December) would be a lose-lose proposition. Our hope will be in the next parliament that will hopefully be more balanced than this one"
