In Parliament last week, Shiite lawmaker Shatha al-Mousawi was complaining bitterly about her recent visit with displaced Shiites from Diyala province. They were expelled from their homes because of sectarian violence.
It's intolerable that the government allows this bloodshed to happen, she said, demanding that the prime minister and other top officials be summoned to Parliament to respond.
The speaker of Parliament reacted to her emotional diatribe with laughter.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, said he was laughing to conceal his pain at the situation in which the Shiites of Diyala found themselves. But Shiite parliamentarians openly scolded him for his seemingly coldhearted reaction, and he in turn began attacking them.
"Three-quarters of those sitting here are responsible for the displacements and the sectarian killings, and now you're calling yourselves patriots?" he thundered.
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No major issue has yet made it to the parliament floor, from the draft oil law to the review of the ban on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to amendments to the constitution.
Procedure calls for a first reading of each bill, like in most other parliaments around the world, and that has yet to happen here.
It's unlikely the bills will be debated before Iraqi lawmakers break for their two-month summer vacation in June.
The prospect of such a long holiday in the midst of political crisis, both here and in Washington, has infuriated U.S. officials and politicians. But Mahmoud Othman says Iraqi lawmakers are already taking off more time than members of the U.S. Congress know about.
"Every month we work two weeks," Othman said. "That's another point people should know about ... we are working half the time. So it's two-to-three hours a day, two weeks a month and then there is a holiday. So it's sort of a disaster ..."
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