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Sunnis extremely wary of new Iraq draft constitution

Iraq`s draft constitution - finished Sunday after months of negotiation - has driven a wedge between the country`s minority Sunnis and everyone else. While the document makes it clear that Iraq will be a much more Islamic country than it was under Saddam Hussein, and that it will probably see the erosion of some women`s rights and individual freedoms as a consequence, it remains vague on many key issues. The Sunnis are afraid the text will lead to the eventual breakup of the country, and leave them clustered in a few central provinces without oil wealth or influence.

"The Americans insisted on finishing this now to satisfy their own people at our cost," says Hussein Shouker al-Falluji, a Sunni on the drafting committee. "If this constitution is passed it will be passed on the back of an American tank, rolling over our bodies."

But while Iraq`s Shiite and Kurdish leadership downplay Sunni fears, saying the document guarantees a strong, united Iraq, the document leaves much unsettled. Perhaps most crucially, it refers to the "federal" nature of the state on a number of different occasions, specifically refers to the right of Iraq`s northern Kurds to maintain the autonomous region they carved with US assistance in the 1990s, and leaves the door open for the creation of such federal regions elsewhere.