Islam looms larger in new Iraqi charter

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BAGHDAD -- U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said yesterday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense American pressure.

Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.

But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam "the" -- not "a" -- main source of law and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.

The Bush administration, with 140,000 troops still in Iraq, has insisted Iraqis are free to govern themselves. But Washington also has made clear it will not approve the kind of clerical rule seen in Shi'ite Iran.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has guided intensive meetings since the Iraqi parliament averted its own dissolution a week ago by giving constitution drafters another week to resolve crucial differences over regional autonomy and division of oil revenues.

Failing to finish by midnight tomorrow could provoke new elections and, effectively, a return to the drawing board for the entire constitutional process.

Another extension may be more likely, as Washington insists the charter is key to its strategy to undermine the Sunni revolt and leave a new Iraqi government largely to fend for itself after U.S. troops go home.

President Bush, in his weekly radio address yesterday, raised the specter of more September 11-style attacks if U.S. troops do not fight in places like Iraq.