Iraqis will brave chaos and anarchy to vote in the referendum today, but the new constitution may promise more than it can deliver, writes Lara Marlowe in Baghdad
After Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, Baghdad felt like the Wild West: lawless and dangerous, but with the exuberance of a post-invasion boom, fuelled by cowboy contractors sucked into the reconstruction gold-rush.
Today, Baghdad is more like a futuristic science fiction film; an entire capital overrun with marauding gangs of bandits and bombers, kidnappers and assassins. With their high-tech armour and electronics, US forces sometimes venture out of their fortresses, 21st-century crusaders fighting an enemy that immolates himself or evaporates into the heat and dust of the city.
Survival instinct dictates rushing from one secure outpost to another, keeping an eye out for gunmen as you cross the sea of chaos. For most Iraqis, the private house or apartment is the basic safety unit, but it too can be invaded. Fayed, the teenage son of friends of mine in northeast Baghdad, was kidnapped by a criminal gang for four days last summer. Since he was freed, he's been afraid to go outside. For foreigners, a barricaded hotel or compound also provides the illusion of security. The biggest outpost is the Green Zone, where Western and Iraqi officials nonetheless circulate with bodyguards.
If one feels safe inside the Green Zone, entering and exiting is a perilous exercise. Two suicide bombers have blown themselves up at the main entrance this month, so one approaches with apprehension. The Iraqi soldier at the gate was telling me that he would vote Yes in today's constitutional referendum "because I want things to get better", when the machine gunner next to us opened fire at an old sedan filled with surly men. They had slowed to have a look at us. The car screeched away, but minutes later, as I advanced into the labyrinth of sandbags, cement and barbed wire, the police started shooting again.
Some 450 Iraqis have met violent deaths in the past 20 days. The automobile is the basic terrorist weapon. It is essential for drive-by shootings, nabbing foreigners or relatives of government officials, and is more effective than an explosives belt for blowing up checkpoints, mosques and crowded markets.
So the only way to hold today's referendum on Iraq's new constitution with minimum loss of life was to stop all traffic. It worked in the January legislative election, when "only" 35 people were killed. The interior ministry imposed an overnight curfew from October 13th to 16th, and no cars were being allowed to move anywhere in the country from 10pm last night, and won't be allowed to move until 6am tomorrow. Iraq's international borders, and even the boundaries between provinces, are theoretically sealed, all airports shut. There are 6,000 polling stations, so every Iraqi can walk to cast his ballot.
EVERY MILESTONE OF the occupation - the April 9th, 2004 first anniversary of the fall of the regime; the "transfer of sovereignty" in the summer of 2004; and now a second election - has been observed in the same manner, with the capital hunkering down in silence.
The deadline for today's referendum was set by a UN resolution last year. The Constitutional Committee didn't even start working until May 28th, because Iraqi politicians had quarrelled for months before forming a government. The Transitional Administrative Law (Tal), an interim constitution, provided for a six-month extension if necessary, but US officials were adamant that the deadline had to be met. "We don't want any delays," the US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld said. "They're simply going to have to make the compromises necessary and get on with it."
The Bush administration needs this constitution. "In the absence of other indicators of success," says a report by the International Crisis Group, "meeting political deadlines has become a substitute for genuine progress." So there will be another parliamentary election in December, whether or not the constitution passes, then another referendum next year if Sunni Muslims avail themselves of the opportunity to amend the text being voted today. "It's instability, instability, instability - not elections, elections, elections," says a US official in the Green Zone. The British foreign secretary Jack Straw said this week that he was optimistic Iraq could be stabilised - within five to 10 years.
There is little doubt that the constitution will pass. Shia Muslims and Kurds together comprise 80 per cent of Iraq's population, and their leaders have told them to vote Yes. It would take a two-thirds negative vote in three of Iraq's four Sunni Muslim provinces to defeat the text. But the US has in recent months carried out a sustained bombing campaign against the "Sunni triangle", and much of the area is deserted. Sunni leaders are divided, and many Sunnis would rather boycott the poll than vote No.
JUDGE ZUHEIR MALIKY was the chief investigating judge at Iraq's central criminal court until he was transferred to a lesser job, after uncovering mass corruption in the transitional government. "I will not vote," he says, "because instead of using the constitution to build the future of Iraq, they've turned it into a political football. No one has explained to the Iraqi people why they should vote Yes or No. They only started distributing copies two days ago; they want people to decide the fate of this country in two days! I am against the way it's been done. It will pass, but the consequence will be more trouble in the Sunni triangle."
The constitution promises "a new Iraq . . . without sectarianism . . ." The phrase "shall be fixed by law" appears dozens of times, deferring difficult issues until later. Many of its provisions are already being systematically violated by the government, eg the ban on abitrary detention and torture, and the requirement that anyone arrested be charged within 24 hours. Judge Maliky initiated proceedings against the former interior minister and the current chief of Iraqi intelligence for arresting people without warrants, and for torture, but the charges were dropped when he was transferred. "I made powerful enemies," he laughs now. "The Tal [interim constitution] also said 24 hours and no torture. Actions speak louder than words." The constitution says that everything not listed as a specific power of the federal authorities "is in the authority of the regions" and that "the priority will be given to the region's law in case of dispute." Opponents interpret these provisions to mean the de facto partition of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions.
"My Sunni friends think the Shia and Kurds want revenge against them," Judge Maliky adds. "The Shia want revenge for 70 years of oppression, and the Kurds are intent on their independent state. I find it hard to believe the rhetoric about the unity of Iraq." An arrest warrant has been issued for the former defence minister Hazem Shalaan, who is accused of stealing $1 billion (€835m) that was intended to purchase weapons for the Iraqi armed forces. "Corruption is more dangerous to Iraq than terrorism," says Judge Maliky. Article 22 of the constitution guarantees that "Work is a right for all Iraqis in a way that guarantees them a good life", but unemployment is estimated as high as 70 per cent. During Saddam's time, young men often paid huge bribes to avoid military service. Now they are so desperate for work that they wait in queues that are targeted by suicide bombers and pay bribes to join the army.
The US academic Noah Feldman, who played a leading role in drafting the Iraqi constitution, told the US Senate this summer: "The Coalition needs to decide whether to co-opt and buy off potential militants or arrest and kill them . . . The key is . . . to demonstrate that giving up violence is rewarded with stature and money."
But there seems little chance that the US can buy its way out of the Iraq war. Iraqi insurgents are motivated by nationalism and religious fervour, not greed. In a videoconference with the US army's 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit this week, President George W Bush said: "We're never going to back down. We're never going to give in. We'll never accept anything less than total victory." Bush will no doubt claim the constitutional referendum as a victory. But in today's Iraq, in the safe islands surrounded by a sea of bloodshed, it is difficult to imagine what "total victory" might be.