Iraqi lawmakers pass 3 key bills
The approval of the power-sharing measures comes after a stormy evening of debates and walkouts. They still need to be approved by the presidential council.
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi lawmakers overcame weeks of deadlock today to pass three key measures: a $48-billion national budget, an amnesty law and legislation paving the way for provincial elections by Oct. 1.
U.S. officials have been pressing Iraq's main ethnic and religious factions to approve these and other power-sharing measures, without which they fear recent security gains could be lost.
"These are difficult issues. They required a lot of effort, a lot of compromise, but they are important steps forward," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said at a news briefing after the measures were passed with a single vote. "A lot of challenges face Iraq and will continue to face us all in support of Iraq. But the work of the council of representatives today deserves congratulations from all of us."
The bills must be approved by Iraq's three-member presidential council, which includes the country's president and two vice presidents, before they become law.
Today's vote came after a stormy evening session that ended in a walkout by dozens of legislators that underscored the persistent suspicion between the country's majority Shiite Muslims, ethnic Kurds and the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under Saddam Hussein.
Mahmoud Mashhadani, the parliament's Sunni speaker who the previous night had said he should disband the legislature altogether, told reporters: "Today is a celebration for the Iraqi parliament."
Leaders of the main political bloc had agreed to vote on the three laws as a package, but then started bickering Tuesday over the order in which to approve them. Each faction feared that if the bill they wanted wasn't approved first, other legislators might walk out before it came to a vote and there would be no quorum.
Mashhadani resolved the matter today by announcing that legislators would approve all three laws with a single vote. Some lawmakers complained the strategy was contrary to official procedure and again walked out. But Mashhadani and his deputy insisted that no rules were broken, and sufficient legislators remained in the chamber to approve the measures by a show of hands.
Saleh Mutlak, who heads the second-largest Sunni party in parliament, the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, emerged from the session saying that parliament should be dissolved because it was incapable of offering anything positive to Iraqis. But other legislators were jubilant.
