Iraq voters approve US-backed Constitution

Newly graduated Iraqi policemen celebrate after the announcement of the final results in the constitutional referendum. Picture / Reuters

BAGHDAD - Iraqi voters ratified a new US-backed constitution despite bitter opposition in Sunni Arab areas where insurgents are battling to topple the Baghdad government, results showed late on Tuesday.

Iraq's Electoral Commission, giving final results from the Oct. 15 referendum, said 79 per cent of voters backed the constitution against 21 per cent opposed in a poll split largely along Iraq's sectarian and ethnic lines.

Several Shi'ite and Kurdish regions voted between 95 and 99 per cent "Yes "; in rebellious, Sunni Anbar 97 per cent said "No".

Prominent Sunni Arab leaders rejected the referendum as a fraud, warning it could fuel militant violence and discourage Sunnis from participating in future elections.

UN and Iraqi election officials said the vote, which was largely peaceful despite widespread fears of a surge in militant violence, was fair.

The results came as the US military death toll in Iraq rose to 1999 - closing on the headline-grabbing 2000 mark expected to spur new calls for US President George W Bush to outline an exit strategy for the Iraqi conflict.

But in a speech to military wives in Washington, Bush said the war would would require more sacrifice, and he rejected calls for a US pullout from Iraq.

"Each loss of life is heartbreaking, and the best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and lay the foundation of peace by spreading freedom," he said. "This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve."

Anti-government insurgents, who struck in dramatic fashion on Monday with a triple suicide bomb attack on a Baghdad hotel used by foreign journalists, set off new blasts on Tuesday in Baghdad and the normally tranquil city of Sulaimaniya, killing at least 15 people in total.

Al Qaeda in Iraq said on Tuesday it was behind the Baghdad hotel attack, according to a Web posting.

The referendum's final results showed that only two of Iraq's 18 provinces, the insurgent stronghold of Anbar in the west and Saddam Hussein's home region of Salahaddin, had mustered a "No" vote of at least two-thirds - one short of the three provinces necessary to veto the measure.

The northern province of Nineveh, thought to represent a third possible "No" due to its large population of Sunni Arabs, ended up with only 55 per cent of voters rejecting the charter.

Commission spokesman Farid Ayar rejected suggestions that results had been tampered with. "We didn't invent these figures. It took us a long time to get them," he told a news conference.

Passage of the constitution is a boost for Washington and the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government in Baghdad, paving the way for a parliamentary election on December 15 that both hope will mark Iraq's emergence as a stable, federal democracy.

Politicians are racing to form the alliances that will shape the new parliament before a Friday deadline for parties and electoral coalitions to register for the elections.

Much will depend on Sunni Arabs, who represent 20 per cent of Iraq's population and have fought the charter as a plot to deprive them of power and access to Iraq's oil wealth in Shi'ite- and Kurdish-dominated areas.

"Politics is linked directly to security on the ground. The situation can only get worse now," Hussein al-Falluji, part of a Sunni team that negotiated the constitution, told Reuters, describing the results as a fraud.

Another Sunni politician, Saleh Mutlaq, said the vote could backfire on government efforts to defuse the insurgency by persuading Sunnis they had no role in the political process.

A top UN election specialist, Carina Perelli, said she was confident the election had not been fixed. "The result is accurate. It has been checked according to the processes that we all follow when we have elections."

But UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's representative in Baghdad, Ashraf Qazi, said the poll once again demonstrated how dangerously polarised Iraq had become.

Both the United States and Britain have sought to ease Sunni fears by emphasising that the constitution can be amended after the new parliament is elected - an enticement for Sunni groups to field candidates and make their voices heard.

Proof of insurgent anger was displayed again this week with the bombing of Baghdad's Palestine and Sheraton hotels, the base for several international media organisations and a symbol of the foreign presence in the capital since the 2003 invasion.

The bombings, which police said killed at least 12 Iraqis, broke a relative lull in insurgent violence over the past two weeks. Body parts were still strewn outside the hotel complex on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday, a suicide car bomber targeted a US military convoy in Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding five, police said. A roadside bomb exploded near a Baghdad hospital, killing one person and wounding another.

In the northern city of Sulaimaniya - a Kurdish area rarely troubled by the violence of the past two years - another car bomb killed at least 12 people, hospital sources said, while a separate bomb attack killed a politician's bodyguard.

- REUTERS