Iraqi lawmakers pass 3 key bills

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.

Only one of the laws figures among the 18 benchmarks set by the United States to evaluate progress in Iraq: a measure that defines the relationship between the central government and provincial authorities.

The wrangling over that bill has repeatedly delayed the scheduling of provincial elections, which U.S. and Iraqi officials say are needed to resolve the skewed representation that resulted from the last round of local balloting in 2005. Most Sunnis boycotted that poll and are now underrepresented in areas where they dominate.

With the provincial powers act approved, parliament passed a separate resolution today stipulating that new elections should be held by Oct. 1.

The only other benchmark law approved so far by parliament is a measure easing restrictions on the government employment of former members of Hussein’s regime. Representatives remain deadlocked on other key bills, including one governing the distribution of Iraq’s massive oil wealth.

Still, U.S. and Iraqi said the laws approved today would help foster reconciliation between the country’s warring sides.

Members of the main Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, were quoted as saying that the amnesty law could speed their return to government. Six of their ministers walked out of Cabinet in August, accusing Iraq’s Shiite-led government of refusing to share power.

One of their major concerns was the plight of Sunni prisoners accused of participating in the insurgency, some of whom have languished in U.S. and Iraqi custody for years without trial. Thousands of those in Iraqi custody could be released under the amnesty law, provided they have not been convicted of major crimes.

The record $48-billion national budget will bring resources to people, Crocker said. Passage of the bill was delayed by squabbling over a demand by the semi-autonomous Kurdish north that 17% of central government spending be directed to their region. Some Sunni and Shiite politicians say the region no longer accounts for that much of the Iraqi population, but agreed to allow it to retain 17% pending a census this year.

There was also an argument over whether the central government should fund the Kurdish regional security force, the peshmerga. But representatives agreed the matter would be resolved by Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, Nouri Maliki, and the Kurdish regional government.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

A Times special correspondent in Baghdad contributed to this report.