Iraqi Parliament: We Deserve a Vacation

Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 8:22:19 am PDT

Does the Iraqi government really want to make a go of it? It’s not easy to see anything good about this development: Laws unpassed, Iraqi parliament calls summer break.

BAGHDAD, July 30 (Reuters) - Iraq’s parliament adjourned for its summer recess on Monday, taking a break until September despite having failed to enact a series of laws demanded by Washington.

Parliamentary speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani said in a statement issued after Monday’s session that he had dismissed lawmakers until Sept. 4.

“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.”

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.