Iraqi MPs unanimously approved three flagship bills, including a delayed state budget for 2008, on Wednesday ending weeks of brinkmanship that had sparked talk of a possible dissolution of parliament. "We adopted three bills unanimously, including the budget," first deputy speaker Khaled al-Attiya told reporters after the session.
The other two bills adopted were an amnesty law and one setting out the powers of the provinces and procedures for provincial elections. The passing of the bills had been among 18 "benchmarks" set by Washington to measure the pace of political reconciliation in Iraq.
The 48-billion-dollar state budget had been due to be adopted before the end of last year but had been held up amid bickering between Iraq's rival Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni blocs which each championed one of the three flagship bills.
The Kurds had said that they feared that if they supported the other two bills, other blocs would not reciprocate by backing the budget, which includes a controversial allocation of 17 percent of the spending to the autonomous northern Kurdish region.
Attiya said that in the end a compromise had been reached on the contested allocation, which will be 17 percent for 2008 but will be reviewed for 2009 on the basis of the Kurdish region's share of the population as assessed in a nation-wide census to be held by the end of this year.
Shiite MPs had championed the provincial election law while Sunni Arabs had been staunch supporters of the amnesty bill which should benefit thousands of detainees held in US and Iraqi prisons, many of them suspected Sunni insurgents.
MPs have said the bill will not apply to those sentenced to death or convicted of terrorism, premeditated murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances, incest, drug trafficking, forgery, rape, sodomy or the smuggling of antiquities.
It will also not apply to anyone formally charged with these crimes. The budget projects revenues of 42 billion dollars and a fiscal deficit of six billion dollars.
Economists say the deficit should pose no problems as almost 80 percent of Iraq's 48 billion dollar 2008 budget is financed through oil revenues, which are expected to rise. Money not spent last year, meanwhile, will be rolled over to this year's budget. The revenue projections were based on oil priced at 57 dollars a barrel, whereas prices are now projected to average 85 dollars a barrel this year.
US auditor Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq, said in a quarterly report released on January 30 that Iraq's oil production reached an average of 2.38 million barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2007.