BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament closed for its summer recess on Monday, lawmakers said, deciding to take a break until early September despite having failed to enact a series of laws demanded by Washington."Parliament has decided to break until early September," Hussein Falluji of the mainly Sunni Accordance Front bloc in parliament told Reuters. "We have already cut the holiday by one month. It is our constitutional right to take it," he added.
The recess means parliament will resume just before U.S. military commander General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to report back to Congress on the success of this year's surge in U.S. troops to Iraq.
A preliminary White House assessment earlier this month faulted Iraqi leaders for failing to enact laws aimed at curbing violence, including measures to distribute oil revenue, hold provincial elections and loosen restrictions on members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party returning to public life.
| This isn't good -- ordinarily people do better when the legislature adjourns, but this is the exception. Americans want to see Iraqis step up to the plate, and recent stories about ordinary Iraqis in the provinces won't penetrate. What many will see is that the Iraqi pols failed to make the tough decisions about oil revenue sharing, voting and regional political structures, and that's going to make it more difficult this September. |