LONDON, September 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Echoing Iraqi fears, the International Crisis Group (ICG) criticized Monday, September 26, 2005, what it termed "Iraq's rushed constitutional process”, saying it has deepened ethnic and sectarian rifts and is likely to worsen the "insurgency" and hasten the country's violent break-up.

"The constitution is likely to fuel rather than dampen insurgency," said Robert Malley, head of the think-tank's Middle East and North Africa program, introducing an ICG report, according to Reuters.

"A compact based on compromise and broad consent could have been a first step in a healing process. Instead it is proving yet another step in a process of depressing decline," he added.

The report comes as a stark contradiction to US claims the controversial constitution process represents a step forward for a stable and federal Iraq.

According to the report, the US helped turning the constitution-making process into “a new stake in the political battle rather than an instrument to resolve it".

"The United States has repeatedly stated that it has a strategic interest in Iraq's territorial integrity, but today the situation appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war," the report says.

Iraqis are to vote on October 15 in a constitutional referendum on what the ICG calls “a weak document that lacks consensus,” according to Reuters.

The referendum will be monitored by the UN, which will be responsible for seeing the document printed and distributed to some five million homes around the country.

51% of Britons polled believed Blair should set a date for the withdrawal of British soldiers from Basra. (Reuters)

The harsh criticism by a reputable international entity echoes Iraqi Sunnis’ concerns related to the process of drafting the constitution and seeing it through.

According to Reuters, the ICG report says the draft, endorsed by Shiite Muslim scholar Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, as well as Shiite and Kurdish parties, is likely to pass despite fierce Sunni Arab opposition.

The Sunnis, Reuters says, are unlikely to muster the two thirds of votes in three provinces required to block its passage.

"Such a result would leave Iraq divided, an easy prey to both insurgents and sectarian tensions that have dramatically increased over the past year," the ICG says.

Sunni Arabs reject the draft mainly because they believe its provisions on federalism could lead to Iraq's break-up, leaving them in a landlocked heartland without oil resources.

The proposed constitution is also vague and ambiguous on decentralization and powers of taxation, the ICG says, with many other questions left for future legislation in parliaments where majority Shiites are likely to have the upper hand.

To avert this outcome, the ICG urges the United States to broker a last-minute political deal among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, before October 15 that would loosen up Sunni fears of a Shiite block emerging in the south.

The ICG report further recommends that the parties would commit themselves to acting after December elections to limit to four the number of governorates that can fuse into an autonomous region, and not to bar Iraqis from office just because of past membership in the Baath party, reported Reuters.

"There is strong reason to doubt whether such a strategy can succeed," the report says, citing polarized communal positions.

"But given the stakes, the US cannot afford not to try."

The ICG report coincided with a poll released in London where 64 percent of respondents said the situation is worsening in Iraq despite the presence there of British soldiers, supporting the ICG report argument, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).