UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations on Monday sought to play down the significance of an internal confidential report suggesting that Iraq's new constitution was a recipe for the country's disintegration.
Newsweek reported in its latest issue that a confidential UN report, dated September 15, warned that the new Iraqi constitution, which will be put to a referendum slated for October 15, was a "model for the territorial division of the state."
Asked about the report, UN chief Kofi Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said it was an internal UN analysis which was leaked to Newsweek.
"This was an internal document," he told reporters. "As far as the UN is concerned, the constitution itself will have to be judged by the Iraqis on October 15 during the referendum."
Iraqis are due to vote on October 15 on the draft charter that emerged last month after weeks of haggling between the different parties, although Sunni Arab leaders have already expressed unhappiness with the document.
More than 80 percent of Iraqis plan to vote, according to an opinion poll published last week.
Iraq has seen almost daily attacks in the run-up to October 15, with US President George W. Bush warning last month of more violence ahead of the referendum and new elections due to be held in December.
A leading Brussels-based think-tank also warned last week that the rushed drafting of the constitution has deepened sectarian rifts and was likely to fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and hasten the country's violent break-up.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) said that Iraq "appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war", unless Washington makes "a determined effort to broker a true compromise between Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs."
Sunnis, who held power for decades, are notably unhappy about the rigorous purging of former members of deposed leader Saddam Hussein's Baath party and about Iraq's federal future as laid down in the document.
They feel that the text "threatens their existential interests by implicitly facilitating the country's dissolution, which would leave them landlocked and bereft of resources," said the ICG report.
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