Seriously, what did you expect?
Two Months In and Still Foundering
Iraqi Assembly Again Fails to Elect Speaker or Fill Other Key Positions
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A08
BAGHDAD, March 29 -- Iraq's new National Assembly had just convened for its second session Tuesday when a wide-girthed Shiite Muslim cleric, Hussein Sadr, appealed to his fellow deputies to quickly elect a speaker.
"Public opinion on the street is now waiting for some action by us. What can we answer?" he said. "What shall we say to history?"
A female delegate clad head-to-toe in black also jumped up to demand answers. "There are 17 Sunni personalities inside this assembly, and to choose one of them is not difficult," she shouted, referring to the vote for speaker. "Please clarify this."
Dhari Fayad, 78, who is temporarily presiding over the assembly by virtue of being its oldest member, had heard enough.
"Now, I ask the media to leave the hall, because we're having a secret session," he said, a little more than 20 minutes into the meeting. A collective groan rose from reporters in a nearby room as the televisions showing the proceedings abruptly switched to an Iraqi singer belting out "My Homeland, My Homeland."
The session was closed so Iraq's newly minted politicians could once again find a way out of an embarrassing failure to start forming the country's first freely elected government. Two months after the assembly was elected, negotiations among the various religious and ethnic groups appear to be increasingly bogged down, as politicians bicker over who will fill top posts.
