September 16, 2007
In Turnaround, Industries Seek U.S. Regulations

By ERIC LIPTON and GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — After years of favoring the hands-off doctrine of the Bush administration, some of the nation’s biggest industries are pushing for something they have long resisted: new federal regulations.

For toys and cars, antifreeze and fireworks, popcorn and produce and cigarettes and light bulbs, among other products, industry groups or major manufacturers are calling for federal health, safety and environmental mandates. Some of those industries are abandoning years of efforts to block such measures, often in alliance with the Bush administration, which pledged to ease what it views as costly, unnecessary rules.

The consequences for consumers, though, are not yet clear. The tactical shift by industry groups is motivated by a confluence of self-interests: growing competition from inexpensive imports that do not meet voluntary standards, and a desire to head off liability lawsuits and pre-empt tough state laws or legal actions that were a response to laissez-faire Bush administration policies. Concerns that Democrats could soon expand their control in Washington have also prompted manufacturers or producers to seek regulations that they consider the least burdensome, regulatory experts say.

“There seems to be, at the moment, a fair amount of efforts under way by individual industries to put into statute what had either previously been voluntary consensus standards or industry goals,” said Rosario Palmieri, a regulatory lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers, which has often opposed government regulations. “This year, we have seen quite a bit of it.”

Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMB Watch, a Washington group that tracks federal regulatory actions, agreed. “I have never before seen so many industries joining a push for regulation,” Mr. Melberth said. “What we need to watch closely is if this will achieve a real increase in standards and public protections or simply serve corporate interests.”

Some industries and consumer groups are aligned in seeking the same regulations, though perhaps for different reasons. “It’s definitely a strange-bedfellow situation,” said Sarah Klein, a lawyer at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is seeking, along with grocery stores and produce growers, new requirements to prevent food-borne illnesses. “The voluntary system is not working from a food-safety perspective, and it’s creating real problems for the industry.”

Other industries, though, are endorsing mandated government standards that fall well short of what consumer advocates want or what tougher state rules require. Trade groups representing makers of antifreeze, upholstered furniture and all-terrain vehicles, for example, had long opposed federal regulations, but are now pushing the Bush administration for rules that consumer advocates say inadequately address safety or environmental concerns.

“I am worried about industry lobbyists bearing gifts,” said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington. “I don’t trust them. Their ultimate goal is regulation that protects them, not the public.”

Federal agencies and the White House have responded to these regulatory proposals in varying ways, with some agencies quickly endorsing them and others deferring action or moving to block them. Susan E. Dudley, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget division that oversees administration regulatory policy, said she was not sure if the number of requests for federal regulations from industry groups was rising. The administration must evaluate each of these proposals, she said, “to understand the full consequences of regulations on all citizens.”

The practice of industry groups turning to regulators or legislators in Washington for a national standard or mandate is not new, of course. While businesses often oppose requirements by saying they are unnecessary as it is already in their interest to produce safe products, at other times they have asked for them to avoid a patchwork of state regulations, to ensure that competitors must meet the same standard or to provide legal protection.

Warning labels on cigarettes, certain workplace safety laws and even nutritional labels on food packaging can be attributed, in part, to actions by industries over the last four decades to push for a federal standard, industry lawyers and lobbyists said.

But industry officials, consumer groups and regulatory experts all agree there has been a recent surge of requests for new regulations, and one reason they give is the Bush administration’s willingness to include provisions that would block consumer lawsuits in state and federal courts.

Such pre-emption clauses were included, for example, in a drug label rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and in a new fire-prevention standard for mattresses imposed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in July, said David C. Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The pre-emptions bar consumers from filing liability claims in courts and supersede any tougher state regulations, extremely valuable protections for a major manufacturer, Mr. Vladeck said. “This is Christmas,” he said of industry, “this is their wish list.” A number of businesses are seeking such pre-emptions, though the clauses are being challenged in many courts.

Concerns about competition have led to other proposals. As imports from China have grown in recent years, low-priced Chinese products that do not meet voluntary industry standards have motivated trade groups to seek new safety mandates.

After a series of recalls this year, for example, American toymakers recently asked the federal government to allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require premarket safety testing of all toys.

The all-terrain vehicle industry for years opposed mandatory standards dictating the way they build their machines. But the industry has changed course as it lost market share to lower-priced Chinese-made A.T.V.’s that do not meet voluntary standards, including some with inadequate brakes and top speeds that exceed guidelines.

“When you move from voluntary to mandatory you give the government policing power to make sure that products on the market meet safety standards — so we are all on a level playing field,” said Tim Buche, president of the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, which represents companies that manufacture A.T.V.’s in the United States.

The willingness of state legislators to enact their own regulations or attorneys general to join together to go after companies has also inspired industry groups to seek new federal regulations. California and Oregon, for example, enacted laws requiring antifreeze manufactures to include a bitter-tasting additive to their formulas to help prevent children and pets from drinking it. That was enough to convince the trade group to drop its opposition to a federal standard and come forward in an alliance with the Doris Day Animal League to propose a new mandate, which included liability protection against any claims filed related to the change in the formula. Environmental groups, though, object to the proposed solution, saying the additive could pollute water.

Some of the broadest shifts by industry have come as Congress, now controlled by Democrats, is indicating that it is serious about taking up major regulatory changes, including tobacco regulations, a possible increase in fuel efficiency standards and legislation addressing climate change, which could affect factories that manufacture thousands of different products.

“They are coming forward, trying to shape the debate with their own proposals so that when activist legislators start writing the new laws, they are included,” said Rena Steinzor, a professor of environmental law at the University of Maryland and a former federal regulator. Ms. Steinzor said she was surprised recently when several major corporations sought her help in negotiating with environmental groups.

The slow response by the Bush administration to several of these proposals has been a source of frustration to some industry groups.

“We have had a very, very uphill battle trying to get regulation,” said David H. Baker, a lawyer for the Lighter Association. The organization, representing cigarette lighter manufacturers, has been seeking a mandatory standard because unsafe, inexpensive Chinese imports were flooding the market, but staff members at the Consumer Product Safety Commission recommended against such a rule, saying the number of deaths and injuries did not justify it.

Similarly, the Bush administration is opposing legislative efforts, endorsed by popcorn makers and health and labor groups, that would impose strict limits on the levels of fake butter that can be found in the air in microwave popcorns plants. An ingredient in synthetic butter can cause deadly lung damage in workers, but the administration says the science on the issue is not conclusive.

Last year, almost all of the nation’s spinach crop was destroyed after contaminated spinach from one 50-acre California farm sickened nearly 200 people in 26 states, killing a Wisconsin woman. It was the last straw for large growers, who now support mandatory safety standards. But the Department of Health and Human Services has been slow to endorse them, leading some proponents to conclude that the agency has objections.

“It’s a little unique when both consumer groups and industry associations are out there saying that we need new regulations, and the government doesn’t agree,” said Jenny Scott, vice president for food safety programs of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Ms. Dudley, of the Office of Management and Budget, said the Bush administration was not trying to block regulation requests. “There is no effort to delay anything,” she said. “We are not trying to stop these things from occurring.”

Robert Shull, deputy director for auto safety and regulatory policy at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, said his organization and other consumer watchdogs would be keeping close tabs to see if these different proposals amounted to more than simply “opportunistic attempts to avoid real regulation.” But Mr. Shull said he was encouraged that at least some companies appeared to be coming forward with meaningful ideas.

“It can give American companies a leading edge,” Mr. Shull said, “especially if the safety or environmental standard is in the vanguard of what is going to happen worldwide.”

White House Debate Over Iran Strategy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/washington/16diplo.html?hp

By HELENE COOPER
Published: September 16, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — While scrutiny this week focused on the debate over troop strength, President Bush also used the occasion to turn up the pressure on Iran, using his speech on Thursday to stress the need to contain Iran as a major reason for the continued American presence in Iraq.

The language in Mr. Bush’s speech reflected an intense and continuing struggle between factions within his administration over how aggressively to confront Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been arguing for a continuation of a diplomatic approach, while officials in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office advocate a much tougher view that seeks to isolate and contain Iran, and to include greater consideration of a military strike.

Mr. Bush’s language indicated that the debate, at least for now, might have tilted toward Mr. Cheney. By portraying the battle with Iran as one for supremacy in the Middle East, Mr. Bush turned up the rhetoric another, more bellicose, notch. “If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened,” Mr. Bush said. “Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region.”

The tensions between Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney have existed for a long time; they began during the administration’s first term, when, as national security adviser, she had to mediate turf battles between a coalition of Mr. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, and Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state.

Now, as secretary of state, Ms. Rice has increasingly come to reflect the more diplomatic view advocated by the State Department, which has pushed for a more restrained tone in America’s dealings with the world in general, and Iran in particular.

Mr. Cheney and hard-line hawks in his office, however, have become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of progress in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, where Ms. Rice has advocated a diplomatic approach.

Allies of Mr. Cheney continue to say publicly that the United States should include regime change in Iran as a viable policy option, and have argued, privately, that the United States encourage Israel to consider a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The testimony this week of Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, that the diplomatic talks with Iran have done little to restrain what he called Iran’s “malign” influence in Iraq, also fueled the disquiet in Mr. Cheney’s office, one administration official said.

The debate between the factions will play out soon in a decision over whether to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or a unit of it, a terrorist organization and subject to increased financial sanctions.

While some White House officials and some members of the vice president’s staff have been pushing to blacklist the entire Revolutionary Guard, administration officials said, officials at the State and Treasury Departments are pushing for a narrower approach that would list only the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, or perhaps, only companies and organizations with financial ties to that group. The designation would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the group.

The administration is still pressing ahead with other efforts to turn up the pressure on Iran. The State Department has asked top officials from the five other world powers seeking to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions to come to Washington on Sept. 21 for a meeting in which R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, will press for stronger United Nations sanctions against Iran.

On Sept. 28, Ms. Rice will meet with her counterparts from Europe, Russia and China to discuss the Iran sanctions issue.

Beyond its nuclear program, Iran has emerged as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration, American officials say, by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas.

In its report to Congress on Friday, the administration accused Iran of providing Shiite militias with training, money and weapons, including rockets, mortars and explosively formed projectile devices, which the administration said accounted for an increased percentage of American combat deaths. The report said that “coalition and Iraqi operations against these groups, combined with a growing rejection of Shia violence by top Government of Iraq officials, has led to some progress in reducing violent attacks from Shia extremists.”

The American military in Iraq still has custody of several Iranian officials who were detained there on suspicion of involvement in providing aid to Shiite militias.

Iran’s government has denied the charges. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Mr. Bush’s Middle East policies had failed and that Mr. Bush would one day be put on trial for the “tragedies” he had created in Iraq.

But a belief has been growing in Iran, which administration officials have pointedly not tried to stem, that the Bush administration is considering military strikes against Iran. An Israeli airstrike in Syria last week kicked up speculation in the Iranian press that Israel, in alliance with the United States, was really trying to send a message to Iran that it could strike Iranian nuclear facilities if it chose to.

“If I were the Iranians, what I’d be freaked out about is that the other Arab states didn’t protest” the airstrike, said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Arab world nonreaction is a signal to Iran, that Arabs aren’t happy with Iran’s power and influence, so if the Israelis want to go and intimidate and violate the airspace of another Arab state that’s an ally of Iran, the other Arab states aren’t going to do anything.”

During the talks next week, the United States, France and Britain will try to get Russia, China and Germany to sign on to a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran’s government.

The sanctions are aimed at getting Tehran to suspend its enrichment of uranium. The international efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been complicated by America’s conflict with Iran in Iraq, which Russia and some European countries argue should take a back seat to the nuclear issue.

Further complicating things has been a dispute over a pact reached last month between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency for Tehran to answer questions about an array of suspicious past nuclear activities.

Gregory L. Schulte, the American delegate to the agency, suggested that Tehran “has no intention of coming clean.”

Sunni Group Says Its 'Holy Operation' Killed Tribal Leader
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Lauds Death of Anbar Foe
By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 15, 2007; A11

BAGHDAD, Sept. 14 -- The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq asserted responsibility Friday for planting the bomb that killed a prominent tribal leader Thursday, calling the assassination a "holy operation" that targeted Abdul Sattar Abu Risha for his alliance with U.S. forces.

A statement posted on the Web site of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group believed to have been formed by al-Qaeda in Iraq, celebrated the killing of Abu Risha, whom it described as President Bush's "dog." A tribal coalition led by Abu Risha had fought against al-Qaeda in Iraq for the past year in Anbar province, leading to a dramatic drop in violence, and Abu Risha met with Bush this month during his surprise visit to Iraq.

"This blessed operation comes at the beginning of the month of conquest and victories so that it will be a new setback to the crusader's project and the crusader Bush's new strategy," the statement said, referring to the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The authors also warned that they would assassinate other tribal leaders.

At Abu Risha's funeral in Anbar's capital, Ramadi, hundreds of mourners vowed to retaliate against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a predominantly Iraqi insurgent group whose links to Osama bin Laden's organization remain unclear.

The size of the funeral crowd, which eyewitnesses estimated at more than 1,000 despite an emergency curfew that prevented many people from traveling from out of town, indicated the broad support Abu Risha had amassed as leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, which was formed a year ago Friday. Many wept as his flag-draped coffin was borne through Ramadi.

Speakers pledged allegiance to his older brother Ahmed, who was elected the new leader of the council.

In his first public remarks since assuming leadership of the council, Ahmed Abu Risha said he would honor his brother's memory by pursuing his assassins.

"We will have revenge against anyone who claims responsibility for this operation. We will follow him wherever he goes," he said.

Several representatives of Iraq's national government traveled to Ramadi to pay respects to the slain leader, including the national security adviser and ministers of interior and defense. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki remained in Baghdad, but his office issued a statement of condolence.

Meanwhile, the republic of Georgia announced Friday that it would withdraw all but 300 of its 2,000 troops from Iraq by next summer. Georgia has become a devoted U.S. ally in Iraq, maintaining a consistent military presence since the American-led invasion in 2003 as it has pushed for inclusion in the European Union and NATO.

At a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili said the drawdown was part of an agreement between the Georgian and U.S. governments.

"We had an agreement with the Americans that we would cut our military contingent by the summer of 2008. This was set up from the very beginning and, accordingly, there will be no talk at all about any sort of reduction before that time," Kezerashvili said, according to the Associated Press.

Also Friday, a suicide truck bomber plowed his vehicle into a restaurant near the northern city of Baiji, killing at least 10 people, police said. The bombing occurred at the only restaurant in the village of Hijaj that had remained open during fasting hours of Ramadan, Hijaj police said.

They said four police officers were among the dead because a patrol had been set up outside the restaurant.

Also Friday, four U.S. soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Diyala province, the U.S. military announced. A military spokesman said no further information about the incident was available.

Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Saad al-Izzi and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.

Converts To Islam Move Up In Cells
Arrests in Europe Illuminate Shift
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 15, 2007; A10

BERLIN -- Religious converts are playing an increasingly influential role in Islamic militant networks, having transformed themselves in recent years from curiosities to key players in terrorist cells in Europe, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts.

The arrests this month of two German converts to Islam -- Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider -- on suspicions that they were plotting to bomb American targets are just one example of terrorism cases in Europe in which converts to Islam have figured prominently.

In Copenhagen, a convert is among four defendants who went on trial this month for plotting to blow up political targets. In Sweden, a webmaster who changed his name from Ralf Wadman to Abu Usama el-Swede was arrested last year on suspicion of recruiting fighters on the Internet. In Britain, three converts -- including the son of a British politician -- are awaiting trial on charges of participating in last year's transatlantic airline plot.

"The number of converts, it seems, is definitely on the rise," said Michael Taarnby, a terrorism researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. "We've reached a point where I think al-Qaeda and other groups recognize the value of converts, not just from an operational viewpoint but from a cultural one as well."

Religious converts are sometimes more prone to radicalization because of their zeal to prove their newfound faith, analysts said. They are also less likely to attract police scrutiny in Europe, where investigators often rely on outdated demographic profiles in terrorism cases.

Converts are a tiny subset of the Muslim population in Europe, but their numbers are growing in some countries. In Germany, government officials estimated that 4,000 people converted to Islam last year, compared with an annual average of 300 in the late 1990s. Less than 1 percent of Germany's 3.3 million Muslims are converts.

While religious leaders emphasize that most converts are law-abiding citizens who often promote interfaith understanding, the recent arrests in Germany prompted some lawmakers to suggest that police should keep converts under surveillance.

"Of course not all converts are problematic, but some are particularly dangerous because they want to demonstrate through extreme fanaticism that they are particularly good Muslims," Guenther Beckstein, interior minister for the state of Bavaria, said last week.

The trend is not limited to Europe. In Florida, U.S. citizen and convert Jose Padilla was convicted last month on conspiracy charges for participating in an al-Qaeda support cell. In March, David M. Hicks, an Australian convert, became the first prisoner at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be convicted on terrorism charges.

Converts have joined militant groups, including al-Qaeda, for years. Wadih el-Hage, a Lebanese Christian who converted to Islam and became a U.S. citizen, served as an aide to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and was convicted for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.

But counterterrorist analysts and officials said they have become much more common and are now playing leadership roles. They said there is also evidence that militant groups, which used to eye converts suspiciously as potential infiltrators, are now encouraging them to join.

In May, al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri released a videotape in which he repeatedly praised Muslim leader Malcolm X and urged African American soldiers to stop fighting in Iraq and embrace Islam.

"I am hurt when I find a black American fighting the Muslims under the American flag," Zawahiri said, according to a translation of the speech by the SITE Institute, a terrorism research group. "Why is he fighting us when the racist Crusader regime in America is persecuting him like it persecutes us?"

This month, bin Laden released a rare videotape in which he called upon all Americans to convert to Islam. Analysts said bin Laden's remarks, though theological in nature, were probably not intended as a direct recruiting pitch for al-Qaeda. But they said his speech likely was influenced by Adam Gadahn, a U.S. citizen from California who converted to Islam as a teenager and is a media adviser for al-Qaeda. He was indicted in the United States on treason charges last year.

"This has the language and hallmarks of Adam Gadahn and is very reminiscent of his own messages in terms of style and content," said M.J. Gohel, chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based security studies organization. "Gadahn, whenever he has appeared in an al-Qaeda video, has always used the opportunity to encourage others to convert to Islam."

Analysts said European converts sometimes are drawn to mosques or organizations at home that have a radical bent but profess nonviolence. After spending time in those circles, however, some seek to deepen their involvement by attending religious schools, or madrassas, in Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Once there, it is easy for spotters from al-Qaeda and other militant groups to recruit potential followers, said Ashraf Ali, a researcher at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan. "That's the point where these new converts fall in the hands of jihadi organizations and they go for military training," he said.

One fundamentalist network that has attracted hundreds of converts in Europe is Tablighi Jamaat, a missionary sect based in Pakistan that characterizes itself as peaceful but is criticized by some authorities as a training ground for extremists. Another is al-Muhajiroun, a movement founded by a radical cleric in London that officially disbanded in 2004 but reorganized into an assortment of splinter groups.

Maulana Muhammad Qasim, a member of the Pakistani National Assembly from the Mardan district who is active in Tablighi Jamaat, said the organization has no links to terrorism or politics.

"It is not the policy of the Tablighi Jamaat to send people for military training or jihad," he said. "But if someone starts off with us and ends up as a militant, that's an individual's decision and has nothing to do with the manifesto of the group."

In Germany, investigators are still trying to determine how the three men arrested Sept. 4 became radicalized and how they came into contact with the Islamic Jihad Union, a South Asian network that has asserted responsibility for the plot to attack American targets in Germany.

Gelowicz, whom investigators have identified as the ringleader of the cell, struggled academically in high school and converted to Islam when he was 18. He was active in radical circles in the southern city of Ulm, home to an Islamic cultural center and other institutions that have long been under police surveillance.

In an interview with the German magazine Stern in July, two months before his arrest, Gelowicz described his introduction to Islam. "I had a good friend who was a Muslim," he said. "At some point, you start to ask questions like, 'Why do you fast?' 'Why don't you eat pork?' You keep asking. At some point you realize that God sent a prophet to fulfill all revelations."

Many Germans have been stunned by news of the alleged plot, and religious leaders said they were trying to counter what they described as a public backlash and heightened suspicion about converts.

Gerhard Isa Moldenhauer, a board member at the Central Institute of the Islam Archive, the oldest Muslim organization in Germany, blamed panicky lawmakers for stirring up distrust.

"The German politicians tell us almost daily that all converts are terrorists," said Moldenhauer, 58, himself a convert. "It is truly sad when politicians have no trust in their citizens."

Special correspondents Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Shannon Smiley in Berlin contributed to this report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
September 13, 2007
Compromise on Oil Law in Iraq Seems to Be Collapsing

By JAMES GLANZ
BAGHDAD, Sept. 12 — A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.

Senior Iraqi negotiators met in Baghdad on Wednesday in an attempt to salvage the original compromise, two participants said. But the meeting came against the backdrop of a public series of increasingly strident disagreements over the draft law that had broken out in recent days between Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, and officials of the provincial government in the Kurdish north, where some of the nation’s largest fields are located.

Mr. Shahristani, a senior member of the Arab Shiite coalition that controls the federal government, negotiated the compromise with leaders of the Kurdish and Arab Sunni parties. But since then, the Kurds have pressed forward with a regional version of the law that Mr. Shahristani says is illegal. Many of the Sunnis who supported the original deal have also pulled out in recent months.

The oil law — which would govern how oil fields are developed and managed — is one of several benchmarks that the Bush administration has been pressing the Iraqis to meet as a sign that they are making headway toward creating an effective government.

Again and again in the past year, agreement on the law has been fleetingly close before political and sectarian disagreements have arisen to stall the deal.

One of the participants in Wednesday’s meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who has worked for much of the past year to push for the original compromise, said some progress had been made at the meeting, but that he could not guarantee success.

“This has been like a roller coaster,” said Mr. Salih, who is Kurdish. “There were occasions where we seemed to be there, where we seemed to have closure, only to fail at that.”

“Given the seriousness of the issue, I don’t want to create false expectations, but I can say there is serious effort to bring this to closure,” he said.

The legislation has already been presented to the Iraqi Parliament, which has been unable to take virtually any action on it for months. Contributing to the dispute is the decision by the Kurds to begin signing contracts with international oil companies before the federal law is passed. The most recent instance, announced last week on a Kurdish government Web site, was an oil exploration contract with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas.

The Sunni Arabs who removed their support for the deal did so, in part, because of a contract the Kurdish government signed earlier with a company based in the United Arab Emirates, Dana Gas, to develop gas reserves.

The Kurds say their regional law is consistent with the Iraqi Constitution, which grants substantial powers to the provinces to govern their own affairs. But Mr. Shahristani believes that a sort of Kurdish declaration of independence can be read into the move. “This to us indicates very serious lack of cooperation that makes many people wonder if they are really going to be working within the framework of the federal law,” Mr. Shahristani said in a recent interview, before the Hunt deal was announced.

Kurdish officials dispute that contention, saying that they are doing their best to work within the Constitution while waiting for the Iraqi Parliament, which always seems to move at a glacial pace, to consider the legislation.

“We reject what some parties say — that it is a step towards separation — because we have drafted the Kurdistan oil law depending on Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution, which says oil and natural resources are properties of Iraqi people,” said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government. “Both Iraqi and Kurdish oil laws depend on that article,” Mr. Abdullah said.

The other crucial players are the Sunnis and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Some members of one of the main Sunni parties, Tawafiq, which insists on federal control of contracts and exclusive state ownership of the fields, bolted when it became convinced that the Kurds had no intention of following those guidelines.

But the prime minister’s office believes there is a simpler reason the Sunnis abandoned or at least held off on the deal: signing it would have given Mr. Maliki a political success that they did not want him to have. “I think there is a political reason behind that delay in order not to see the Iraqi government achieve the real agreement,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Mr. Maliki. Mr. Rikabi was at Wednesday’s meeting.

Ali Baban, who as a senior member of Tawafiq negotiated the compromise, said that allegation was untrue. “I have a good relationship” with Mr. Maliki, he said. “This is an issue of Iraqi unity. This could cause a split in this country.”

Mr. Maliki has suggested returning to the original language agreed to in February and trying once again to push the law through Parliament. Mr. Salih says there is basic agreement on returning to that language, but conceded that Sunni participants in Wednesday’s meeting might insist on a deal that includes changes to the Iraqi Constitution to safeguard their interests in the distribution of revenues. A law on how the revenue should be shared is being developed as a critical companion piece of legislation to the draft law.

The central element of the compromise was agreed to in February after months of difficult negotiations among Iraq’s political groups.

The main parties in those negotiations were Iraqi Kurds, who were eager to sign contracts with international oil companies to develop their northern fields; Arab Shiites, whose population is concentrated around the country’s southern fields; and Arab Sunnis, with fewer oil resources where they predominate.

Those facts meant that the compromise law had to satisfy both the Sunni insistence that the central government maintain strong control over the fields as well as the push by the Kurds and Shiites to give provincial governments substantial authority to write contracts and carry out their own development plans.

Somehow negotiators managed to strike that balance, but soon after, the agreement began to crumble. Many of the negotiations centered on a federal committee that would be set up to review the contracts signed with oil companies to carry out the development and exploitation of the fields. The Kurds objected to any requirement that the committee would have to approve contracts. So in a nuanced bit of language, the negotiators gave the committee the power only to reject contracts that did not meet precisely specified criteria.

But problems immediately cropped up after the cabinet approved the draft law and, in what seemed to be a perfunctory step, it went to a council that was supposed to hone the language to be sure it complied with Iraqi legal conventions.

When the draft emerged from that council, the members of some parties, particularly the Kurdish ones, thought that the careful balance struck in the draft had been upset, and they accused Mr. Shahristani of meddling. Then the law languished in Parliament and, said Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, the Kurds decided to send a signal that they would not wait indefinitely and signed the contract with Dana Gas.

“It served as a reminder: ‘If you keep stalling, life goes on,’ ” said Mr. Zebari, who is Kurdish.

On Monday the Kurdistan Regional Government, or K.R.G., issued another rejoinder to the oil minister’s views that the Kurds’ moves were illegal. “His views are irrelevant to what the K.R.G. is doing legally and constitutionally in Kurdistan,” the regional government said.

Mr. Shahristani was apparently traveling and did not respond to e-mail messages sent Wednesday. But Saleem Abdullah al-Juburi, a Tawafiq member who participated in Wednesday’s meeting, gave his own assessment of the Kurdish agreements with Hunt and Dana Gas. “The contracts are not legal,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Ali Hamdani and Khalid al-Ansary from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from northern Iraq.