IRAQ - Parliament Passes CrucialLaws.

MPs on Feb. 13 pushed through three divisive laws held up for months by bitter feuding between factions and, recently, threats to dissolve the parliament. The three laws are the $48 bn 2008 budget, one outlining the scope of provincial powers - a crucial aspect of Iraq's self-definition as a federal

MP 'Adnan al-Dulaimi who leads the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, said: "this is the greatest achievement possible for the Iraqi people". Deputy Speaker Khaled al-Attiya, a Shi'ite, beamed as he told reporters right after the vote that the laws had passed unanimously.

Passage of the measures represented a significant achievement for the parliament, which on many days could not muster a quorum. The approach of voting on the three laws together broke the logjam because it allowed every group to boast that it had won something. Leaders of the blocs - Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish - realised that while no single law could pass on its own, together, the measures offered something for each political constituency. So factions would swallow the laws they liked least in order to get the one they wanted.

The Kurds wanted the budget in its current form, which guaranteed their Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) 17% of Iraq's revenues after subtracting the costs of federal ministries which serve the entire country, like Foreign Affairs and Defence. The Sunnis wanted the amnesty because about 80% of the more than 26,000 detainees in Iraqi jails were Sunnis - with about half of all detainees not having been sentenced. The Shi'ites wanted the provincial powers law because they wanted to be sure that much authority rests in the hands of the provinces rather than in the central government.

After the laws are approved by the three-man Presidency Council, in this case a formality since all of the political blocs agreed to their passage, they will be published.

The particulars of the laws remained unclear in part because changes were made in the last minutes of the legislative process. Embedded in each of the measures, however, are the same problems which created the controversy. On the budget, for example, the debate over the size of the KRG share has merely been deferred for a year. On the provincial powers law, which includes a requirement that elections for the provincial councils be held in the autumn of 2008, there are serious problems with the commissions to administer the polls both at the national and provincial levels, raising questions about whether the votes will be viewed as fair or will merely deepen divisions among the sects. Such worries could end up delaying the elections.

Left out of the political bargain are the ACs and CLCs, which are mainly Sunni and in many cases represent powerful tribes. Allied with the US, they have taken the lead in fighting the Neo-Salafi groups. Now their leaders are clambering for a place at the table. They are outraged that the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), which is Sunni but has limited grass-roots support, dominates the provincial council in Anbar. Shaikh Ali Hatem, one of the leaders of the Anbar Awakening Council (AAC), who had just survived a suicide bomb attack, was on Feb. 14 quoted as saying: "In Anbar...we want the provincial council disbanded and another one formed, we want elections to be held in March or April, and we want the Iraqi Islamic Party to leave the province in 30 days". There appeared to be little chance of elections before the autumn.

Iraq's last provincial elections were held in January 2005, and were boycotted by most Sunni Arabs. The large radical Shi'ite Sadrist movement only ran a small number of candidates. The result has been limited provincial governments in much of the country weakened further by the security situation. In Sunni areas, provincial leaders have sometimes clashed with the ACs and CLCs - collections of largely Sunnis men many of whom were former insurgents. While in Shi'ite areas, Sadrist militia fight with police forces controlled by a rival and more organised Shi'ite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

Provincial elections may be particularly important in consolidating progress made by the US military and its newfound AC/CLC allies against al-Qaeda, strengthening the legitimacy of these American-funded forces and speeding their assimilation into the state's police and Army. However, some politicians are sceptical that the vote can be held by the autumn, as a key law regulating the process is yet to be passed, and groups which did well in the 2005 vote, like the SIIC, may have a vested interest in delaying or postponing any election. Independent Kurdish MP Mahmoud 'Othman was on Feb. 14 quoted as saying: "Implementation of this will not be so easy".

Iraq's $48 bn budget represents a big rise from 2007's $41 bn. State revenues, which are almost entirely derived from crude oil exports, have steadily increased as world prices have risen. But Iraqi officials have been criticised over their inability to spend the sums at their disposal, as their offices lack the technical and managerial expertise.

The debate in parliament was most notable for the bitter sectarian rift over the division of revenues which it exposed. Sunni and Shi'ite MPs had earlier walked out of parliament to protest the earmarking of 17% of state revenues for the KRG, while they insisted that the Kurds should only get 14%, based on estimates of its population from a previous census. The KRG argued that the census data were obsolete, and that the 17% formula was established by prior agreement, in part to compensate the north to make up for neglect and destruction dating from the years of Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist dictatorship. But MPs compromised on a measure to grant the KRG the 17%, so long as a census was held by end-2008.

US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on Feb. 13 told reporters: "I'd like to congratulate the...government and people of Iraq for these significant accomplishments". Officials had said the prolonged delay in approving the $48 bn budget was holding up vital spending at a time when the US was urging the government to jump-start the economy to take advantage of a decline in violence.

Scores of MPs had stormed out of the legislature in the evening of Feb. 12, in a sign of the deep distrust among the politicians. Some MPs said parliament should be disbanded and new elections held. But parliament convened again on Feb. 13 and, despite a walkout by some MPs, managed to overcome a row over voting procedures to pass the three laws as a package. Parliament's Sunni Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said: "We have proven today that Iraqis are just one bloc".

Washington had pressed Iraqi leaders to pass legislation to help heal sectarian divisions which had festered during a Sunni insurgency against US forces and savage violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis. The laws passed are not among several key benchmarks sought by the US; but the measures, especially the Amnesty Law, would still form an important component of reconciliation.

The IAF said passage of the Amnesty Law would help accelerate its return to the Shi'ite-led government of PM Nouri Al Maliki. The IAF, which quit the government in August 2007, had long demanded the release of security detainees. US forces and Iraqi authorities each hold more than 23,000 prisoners, many of them Sunnis behind the insurgency against the American-backed government.