Iraq lawmakers pass key budget and amnesty laws

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers achieved a major breakthrough on Wednesday, passing the 2008 budget after weeks of delay and an amnesty law that could lead to the release of thousands of prisoners from the country's jails.

Parliament also passed a provincial powers law that will define ties between Baghdad and local authorities. That paves the way for provincial elections to be held by October 1.

"I'd like to congratulate the ... government and people of Iraq for these significant accomplishments," the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, told reporters.

Scores of lawmakers had stormed out of the legislature on Tuesday evening, blocking a vote on the bills in a sign of the deep distrust between the country's Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians. Some MPs said parliament should be disbanded and new elections held.

But parliament convened again on Wednesday and despite a walkout by some lawmakers, managed to overcome a row over voting procedures to pass the three measures as a package.

"We have proven today that Iraqis are just one bloc," said parliament speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab.

Washington has pressed Iraqi leaders to pass legislation to help heal sectarian divisions that have festered during a Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S. forces and savage violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis.

The laws passed on Wednesday are not among several key benchmarks sought by the United States, but the measures, especially the amnesty law, would still form an important component of reconciliation, U.S. officials have said.

The main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, said passage of the amnesty law would help accelerate its return to the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The Front, which quit the government in August, has long demanded the release of security detainees.

U.S. forces and Iraqi authorities each hold more than 23,000 prisoners, many of them Sunni Arabs behind the insurgency against the American-backed government that erupted after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"We have no doubt that passing this law will have a remarkably positive effect in speeding up the return of the Accordance Front to the government," said Salim al-Jubouri, a lawmaker and spokesman for the bloc.

The government has said prisoners under investigation, on trial or convicted could be eligible to be freed. The pardon would exclude those convicted of major crimes such as terrorism. It only applies to prisoners in Iraqi custody.

BUDGET BITTERNESS

Lawmakers had also spent weeks wrangling bitterly over the level of spending on the largely autonomous Kurdish region.  Continued...