Mar. 30, 2005 – After failing to agree on a new government in its second session, members of Iraq?s national parliament berated leaders of various political factions, and the interim speaker ordered journalists to leave the proceedings. Iraqi television, which had been broadcasting the parliamentary meeting, quickly changed its programming to Arabic music.
"You can say we are in a crisis," Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician, told reporters. The new parliament was elected January 30, but has yet to agree on who will hold top positions in the new government. The assembly?s dominant Shi?ite bloc and a powerful Kurdish faction have argued for weeks over the spoils of political power, failing to even agree on who will serve as parliamentary speaker.
