Doyle McManus
March 30, 2005

Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues for more than 25 years from Washington, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. (Read Doyle McManus's bio)

Q: The Sunnis did not participate in Iraq's January elections but several Sunni groups now are showing interest in being included in the government now taking shape. What prompted the change of heart? What interest might the election-winning Shiites have in reaching out to the minority Sunnis?

The Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20% of Iraq's population and have historically dominated the country's government, are deeply divided. Moderates, including former Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi, want to participate in the new cabinet. Their argument is that Sunnis will be better off if they join in writing the new constitution and building the new government -- even though it will be dominated by Shiite Muslims, who many Sunnis historically considered inferior - than if they stay out. In effect, they are saying the Sunnis made a mistake by boycotting the January election. Others, including the militant Association of Muslim Scholars led by Sheik Harith al Dari, are demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops before they will agree to participate - but even Dari seems to acknowledge that the Sunnis want a place at the table when the constitution is being written.

My colleague Richard Boudreaux in Baghdad has written an excellent article on where the Sunnis stand: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-sunnis28mar28,0,5173092.story?coll=la-home-headlines

What's in it for the Shiites? One of the biggest dangers facing Iraq today is sectarian violence leading to civil war. To avert that danger, it's in everyone's interest to make the new government, and the constitution-writing process, as inclusive as possible, according to leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite-led coalition that won 57% of the seats in January's election. But it won't be easy to satisfy everyone. Last I heard, the Alliance was talking about naming four or five Sunnis to cabinet positions, and the Sunnis were holding out for six to eight spots.

Q: Does it appear that the new Iraqi government will write a constitution by August? What are the consequences if they fail to meet this target date?

The time for writing a new constitution is short. Only five months are left from April through August, and the constitution-writers haven't been appointed yet. The constitution will have to address a long list of sticky problems, from the nature of Iraqi federalism (how much autonomy do the Kurds get to keep?) to the role of Islamic Sharia law (how much power will clerical judges have over education, marriage and other social issues?). Negotiations over cabinet jobs in the new government have already lasted two months without a successful conclusion; it's hard to see how a constitution gets done in five months. (The American constitutional convention of 1787 took four months, but that was after more than three months of delegate selection - and those delegates didn't have an insurgency to worry about.)

If the Iraqis miss the deadline, the immediate consequences aren't too dire; they'd presumably continue working under the Transitional Administrative Law handed down by the U.S. occupation authority. But over time, failure to produce an Iraqi-written constitution will erode the interim government's legitimacy and authority.

Q: In recent months, Iraqis working with the coalition have become targets of insurgent attacks. Are there any indications of the impact this is having on effort to stabilize and reconstruct the country? Are civilians more likely to see the insurgents as the enemy and cooperate with the coalition, or are Iraqis just as likely to resist the coalition out of fear of drawing the retribution of the insurgents?

The insurgents do appear to be targeting Iraqi civilian officials and recruits for the new Iraqi security forces more than U.S. troops. U.S. officials say the number of insurgent attacks has been roughly constant at about 60 a day, but Iraqi casualties have gone up and U.S. casualties have gone down. The insurgents have also succeeded in crippling Iraq's oil and electricity production, a major obstacle to economic recovery. (Oil production has been stuck at 2 million barrels per day, 20% below the pre-war level. Baghdad still gets electricity only about 12 hours a day.) This doesn't seem to have dissuaded Iraqis from volunteering for the new security forces; aides to Gen. David Petraeus, who is running the training programs, say they have all the recruits they can handle. Nor has it dissuaded Iraqi civilians from seeking government jobs. Yes, unemployment in Iraq is high; but so is enthusiasm for the prospect of a new government, at least among Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis.

To me, the most striking development is the increase in intercommunal violence - in attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents against Shiite and Kurdish civilians. In the short run, that seems likely to rally Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis around the government and its new security forces (or, in the case of the Kurds, their well-established peshmerga security forces). But in the long run, it could nudge the country toward civil war.

Q: From your reporting, have you seen indications that the U.S. has begun to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis after the election? What are the public's feelings toward the U.S. and the coalition forces?

The issue now is not so much whether the United States can win hearts and minds, as whether the new Iraqi government can hold onto the support of those who voted for it on January 30. Polling in Iraq is even less exact than in the United States, but the polling that's been done suggests that most Iraqis want foreign forces to leave as soon as possible - but not just yet, with the security situation as bad as it is now. Interviews of Iraqis by reporters on the ground in Baghdad confirm that general view.

For what it's worth, a poll completed in early March by the International Republican Institute (which has conducted well-designed, nonpartisan polls despite its partisan roots) found that about 11% of Iraqis considered the presence of foreign troops to be the country's biggest problem - after electricity (20%) and healthcare (18%), but just ahead of unemployment (9%). U.S. and coalition forces aren't particularly popular in much of Iraq. They're blamed both for being too rough -- for handling people insensitively, for shooting at suspicious-looking cars on the highway - and for being not rough enough. Whenever insurgents kill innocent civilians, Iraqis tend to blame U.S. forces for failing to prevent it.

Q: A few countries such as Poland and Italy have decided to withdraw from Iraq later this year. What impact is this likely to have on the rebuilding process in Iraq?

Not much. It will be a political embarrassment for the Bush Administration, which liked to point to the 39-nation "coalition of the willing" as evidence that the invasion and occupation of Iraq had broad international support. That coalition is now down to 28, and the withdrawal of Poland, Italy and Ukraine will reduce it to 25. But most coalition troops (not counting the British) were handling security duties in relatively quiet parts of Iraq, and their duties are being taken over by the new Iraqi security forces. So the impact on security and reconstruction is not likely to be great.