Iraqi legislators agree on one thing: Speaker must go
BAGHDAD — Iraq's legislators, under pressure from Washington to produce political progress that might expedite an end to the war, demonstrated Monday their determination to take up issues important to them: They voted to oust their speaker for rude behavior.
Declaring the latest outburst by the leader of parliament to be the final straw, the Shiite Muslim-led body decided to request that Mahmoud Mashadani, a Sunni Muslim, be ousted. The move will not affect the balance of power in the lawmaking body, which requires that he be replaced by another Sunni. However, it pointed up yet again the parliament's focus on internal squabbles rather than on national laws deemed crucial to bringing stability to Iraq.
As lawmakers gathered in a closed session to debate Mashadani's behavior, which has included slapping a fellow legislator and cursing him on the floor of the parliament, the U.S. military reported that violence had killed three more Americans and destroyed a strategic bridge. In addition, at least 17 Iraqis were found dead across the capital, police said.
The three U.S. soldiers died Sunday night when a bomber blew himself up beneath a highway overpass on which a U.S. checkpoint was set up south of Baghdad, the military announced Monday.
Northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province, insurgents on Monday blew up a bridge used by U.S. and other foreign troops. There were no casualties immediately reported in the attack in Baqubah.
In New York, the United Nations secretary-general delivered a dismal report on the status of the U.S.-led effort to quell Iraq's violence by putting thousands of additional soldiers in Baghdad and neighboring areas, including Diyala.
Ban Ki-moon said the troop "surge" had fallen far short of its goals to protect civilians, rein in militia fighters and quell sectarian warfare. He singled out increasing mortar and rocket attacks on the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy, Iraqi parliament and many government installations are based, as a sign of how things are worsening.
The United Nations headquarters also is in the Green Zone, and the secretary-general said that because of incoming fire, staff had been moved to "more hardened" facilities. The only long-term solution was construction of a new headquarters to withstand the increasingly larger-caliber rockets being fired into the Green Zone, he said in a regular quarterly report to the Security Council.
