Who are you going to believe with regard to the story on the Iraq constitution? The Washington Post, AP, or Omar from Iraq the Model who was live blogging the legislative session where the constitution was discussed as well as giving us a blow by blow account of analysis by major players being interviewed on television.

First, the updated Washington Post:

“The chances of bringing Sunni Arabs to the political process are almost lost,” said Salih Mutlak, the most vocal and most publicly unyielding of the Sunnis involved in talks on the constitution. “The Sunni Arabs will suffer a lot, unfortunately. Everybody in Iraq is going to suffer from this.”

And here’s the AP:

A top Sunni negotiator, Saleh al-Mutlaq, told Alhurra Television that all opponents of the constitution will hold a conference to decide their next move. He gave no date.

“Now we will move to a general conference that includes all groups that did not take part in the (Jan. 30) elections to take a decision,” he told the U.S.-funded station.

Al-Mutlaq said earlier the Sunni negotiators would not sign off on the final draft because of objections to provisions that allegedly threaten Iraqi unity — particularly federalism — and fail to affirm the country’s Arab identity. The draft refers to Iraq as an Islamic — but not Arab — country as the Sunnis demanded.

“I think if this constitution passes as it is, it will worsen everything in the country,” he said.

At the same time, al-Mutlaq urged all Iraqis to refrain from violence

Now here’s Omar:

While the draft is still being read, Salih Al-Mutlaq confirmed again that none of the 15 Sunni members of the CDC have signed the draft.

Al-Mutlaq also highlighted the American role in bridging the gap between the different parties involved in the process but he put the blame on the other parties (the Sheat and the Kurds) for focusing on “their narrow partisan and sectarian” interests.

Our only difference we had with the Americans was about setting a rigid timetable for completing the process.
[..]

We’ll be calling all the powers that didn’t participate in the last elections for a conference where we will be declaring our objections on the draft…

Al-Mutlaq also explained that their objections are limited to a few points and that they agree with large parts of constitution and he stressed that they (the Sunni parties) will fully participate in the future phases of the political process.

He also called on the people who are not satisfied with the draft to avoid violence and keep practicing their normal daily activities and express their opinion in peace.

I think I’ll let you, the reader decide about which account is the least biased and most accurate. All I’m doing here is shaking my head in sadness that we live in a time of such peril and are being served by such a bunch of idiots in the mainstream press.