Iraqi cleric warns U.N. on constitution
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric urged the United Nations not to recognize Iraq's interim constitution as a framework for a permanent government and warned that he would not meet with U.N. delegations if it did.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the "basic law," which the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council signed earlier this month, lays the groundwork for Iraq's partition along ethnic lines.
A letter from Sistani's office to Lakhdar Brahimi, a top aide to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, says the interim constitution "shackles" an interim national assembly and leaves the country without a broadly representative government to write a permanent constitution.
"Despite the respect and appreciation you enjoy from his eminence Sayyid Sistani, he does not have the desire to be party to any meetings and consultations by the international mission in its coming mission to Iraq unless there is a clear position from the U.N. that this 'law' would not be binding to the elected national assembly and that it will not be mentioned in any new resolution by the Security Council," says the letter from Sistani's office.
There was no immediate reaction to the letter from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
Sistani -- the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite majority -- has called for elections as soon as possible to establish a new government in Iraq.
The U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has said the coalition now ruling Iraq will hand over control to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, but it is not yet known what shape that government will take.
Sistani said any permanent constitution should be written by a broadly representative interim government.
In his office's letter to Brahimi, Sistani argued that the basic law "does not enjoy the support of the majority of the Iraqi people" and was "dictated by non-elected council, which is the transitional Governing Council, in accordance with the occupation authorities."
Its creation of a three-member presidency "consolidates sectarianism and ethnicity in the future political system of the country" and would make decision-making difficult "without the presence of a pressing foreign power," the letter said.
"This might lead to division and partition -- God forbid," it said.
The United Nations said Thursday it was ready to send a U.N. team -- headed by Brahimi -- back to Baghdad "as soon as practicable" to consult with Iraqis on the transition to sovereignty and preparations for national elections.
Sistani said he feared the CPA would try to obtain international legitimacy by inserting the "basic law" into a new U.N. resolution, which he said "would be unwillingly binding to the Iraqi people." That, he told Brahimi, "would have dangerous consequences in the future."
News of the Sistani letter came as more non-Iraqi civilians were being killed by drive-by attackers.
Two Finnish businessmen were shot and killed Monday in Baghdad after unidentified attackers ambushed their convoy.
Finland government spokesman Pekka Hyvoen, speaking from Helsinki, said the Finns were en route to a meeting and were part of a group of nine businessmen who were in the Iraqi capital representing high-tech companies.
Hyvoen could offer no other details about the ambush.
Monday's ambush is the latest in a rash of attacks on non-Iraqi civilians this month.
On March 9, two Americans -- Fern Holland, 33, a lawyer, and Robert Zangas, 44, a press officer -- and their Iraqi translator, were ambushed, shot and killed while traveling on a road south of Baghdad. The Americans worked for the U.S.-led civilian administration in Iraq.
A March 15 drive-by shooting on a vehicle in Mosul killed four American Baptist missionaries and left a fifth hospitalized in critical condition.
The following day, four people were killed -- including a Dutch engineer and a German when two vehicles were attacked south of Baghdad near Karbala, according to local police. The remaining people in the group were Iraqi civilians, two of whom were killed in the attack. The team was believed to be working on irrigation efforts.
In another violent incident Monday, an Iraqi civilian was killed and eight others were injured in a land mine explosion in the northern city of Ba'qubah, police said. No other details of that attack were available.
In the center of the southern city of Basra, meanwhile, 13 British military personnel were injured Monday in two explosions in central Basra, the British Ministry of Defense said.
None of the injuries is believed to be life-threatening, the ministry said in a written statement. The source of the explosions was not immediately known.
U.S. troops attacked
The attacks came a day after a U.S. soldier from the Army's 1st Armored Division and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in a blast from an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Baghdad's Abu Ghurayb district, according to the Coalition Press Information Center.
Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack in the western part of the capital.
Earlier Sunday, a U.S. Army soldier was shot and killed in a noncombat incident while soldiers were preparing for patrol, the coalition said.
That soldier was with the 1st Infantry Division, based in Samarra, about 70 miles north of Baghdad, the coalition said.
Also Sunday, rockets landed in and near Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone, killing two Iraqis and wounding a U.S. soldier and at least five Iraqis, according to Iraqi and coalition sources.
The U.S.-led coalition headquarters is located within the Green Zone.
Sunday was a holiday in Iraq, and Iraqi officials had asked citizens not to gather in large groups for security reasons.
With the deaths, 579 U.S. forces have died in the year-long Iraq war -- 393 from hostile fire, 186 from nonhostile incidents. Of the total, 440 have died since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations -- 277 from hostile fire, 163 from nonhostile incidents.
Meanwhile, the United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.
"I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the U.N.'s investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." (Full story)
European Union President Romano Prodi on Sunday cautioned Americans not to "confuse terrorism with the Iraqi war" in their assessment of Europe's reactions to U.S. foreign policy.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Prodi said the war in Iraq "was a mistake."
He called it "a break" in a political strategy "of trying to make things better."
"I don't think the fight against terrorism is better because of the war in Iraq," Prodi said. "Clearly, it is not."
CNN's Sally Holland, Jane Arraf, Walter Rodgers and Kianne Sadeq contributed to this report.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
