“Washington is just sitting by the phone... always asking what is happening. There is tremendous pressure and intervention from the US. It had never been so much since the invasion.”
“We can still prepare the draft without the Sunnis. All the groups elected in the national assembly can come together and prepare the draft by Monday evening.”
“There are attempts to convince the (Shiite) alliance to leave the issue of federalism in other parts of Iraq (apart from the Kurdish north) for the next parliament to deal with, and also to implement it gradually over two or three years, not now.”
“We have all agreed to a democratic Iraq. We have agreed to ballot boxes deciding everything, We have agreed that the people should chose everything. They've never said they wanted an Islamic law, Islamic state.”
“If it is delayed a bit nothing much will affect it because this is a deadline we put ourselves, I mean the coalition and the Governing Council, just the two of us. The two of us are in these meetings ... so if we say that we can't finish it, give it a few more days. It's very logical. It won't be any problem as far as Iraq is concerned.”
