Iraq Parliament Finds a Quorum Hard to Come By

[brooklynite]

BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 — Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, read a roll call of the 275 elected members with a goal of shaming the no-shows.

Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister? Absent, living in Amman and London. Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian statesman? Also gone, in Abu Dhabi.

Others who failed to appear Monday included Saleh Mutlak, a senior Sunni legislator; several Shiites and Kurds; and Ayad al-Samaraei, chairman of the finance committee, whose absence led Mr. Mashhadani to ask: “When will he be back? After we approve the budget?”

It was a joke barbed with outrage. Parliament in recent months has been at a standstill. Nearly every session since November has been adjourned because as few as 65 members made it to work, even as they and the absentees earned salaries and benefits worth about $120,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/world/middleeast/24noshow.html?hp&ex=1169701200&en=da3b30bd5f085366&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[underpants]

1. They did hold a session... in London

at least I read that somewhere

The braindrain out of Iraq is a story completely unreported

[Scurrilous]

2. Maybe they're afraid to drive to work.

Gunmen open fire on Iraqi minister's convoy, kill one

<snip>

"Gunmen opened fire on the motorcade of Iraq's higher education minister on a highway in southern Baghdad on Wednesday, killing one of his guards, the minister told Reuters.

"We were exposed to gunfire at different points along the highway. One of my guards was killed and another was shot in the head and seriously wounded," said minister Abd Dhiab al-Ajili, a Sunni.

Ajili said he was heading to work when the convoy was attacked in the southern Dora district, a dangerous part of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi troops struggled to quell violence in an offensive last summer.

"I was surprised. There were no police, no army and no U.S. soldiers. It was as if the area was empty," he said."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24189655.htm

[Theduckno2]

3. What! It takes more than "purple-fingers"?

Sorry. My cynicism is running a little high after the State of the Union.

[annabanana]

4. "No one could have predicted"

That they wouldn't be able to get together on this. I expect all the factions were supposed to run towards each other with open arms, in slow motion, over the flowery fields that had been strewn by the Iraqis for the American "liberators".


. .. just another neocon fevered delusion. . .

[LiberalFighter]

5. $120,000 ??? Geesh

[LiberalFighter]

6. They don't have any procedures/law for those that don't show up to do their job?

When is their next election? Or were they elected for life?