Iraqis' debate on oil bill stalls

BAGHDAD -- Political infighting blocked lawmakers from opening debate yesterday on legislation to oversee the oil industry, as Iraqi and US leaders called for reconciliation among Iraq's feuding factions.

An influential group of Sunni Muslim clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, joined the fray surrounding the oil bill yesterday by issuing a fatwa, or religious edict, forbidding legislators from voting for it.

"Whoever does so will be exposed to God's wrath and will have committed the crime of collaboration with the enemy," said a statement from the group, a fierce opponent of the US occupation. Sunni legislators have said the bill would open the industry to foreign investors, mainly US oil companies, and deprive Iraqis of their due wealth.

The developments were an ominous sign for US and Iraqi leaders, who have counted on passage of the legislation to show evidence of political progress before Parliament starts a monthlong break July 31. US officials must give Congress a progress report on Iraq in September, leaving little time for the measure to win approval.

Also yesterday, two US soldiers were killed in Iraq. One died in Nineveh Province in northwestern Iraq when his helicopter was shot down. A second soldier was injured in the attack. In southern Baghdad, another soldier was killed, the military announced, bringing to at least 3,588 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the US invasion of March 2003.

At a gathering yesterday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged lawmakers to trade the "language of confrontation" for the "language of cooperation," a message to legislators whose boycotts of Parliament and squabbling have hobbled the government. Vowing that Iraqis will not "slack off," Maliki said they were "ready to take the steps that will take us to a brighter future."

Maliki joined President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and US Army General David H. Petraeus in addressing hundreds of guests who crowded into a former palace of the deposed president Saddam Hussein's inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone for a US Independence Day celebration.

Petraeus and Crocker harked back to the early days of America after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and said that era was evidence that there is nothing quick and simple about establishing a democracy in any country.

"It's not easy to stand united. We learned that lesson during our own nation's history, and we are seeing that in Iraq today," Petraeus said.

Crocker echoed the sentiment but also hinted at the disappointing pace of progress so far in Iraq. He recalled his last Fourth of July in Iraq, three months after Hussein's government fell in 2003, and described the days leading up to it as "those exuberant months after liberation, when all things seemed possible."

President Bush has sent an additional 28,500 US troops to Iraq as part of his plan to stabilize the capital and give Maliki a better environment in which to develop a functioning government . So far, sectarian rivalries have stymied the Parliament , and none of the legislation considered essential to national reconciliation has been enacted.

The oil legislation is considered the most important, because of the potential wealth to be derived from the oil industry. The legislation involves two bills, one a framework to oversee management of the industry. The other, known as the revenue-sharing law, would lay out the mechanisms for distributing oil revenues.

The framework was passed by the Cabinet on Tuesday, but various political blocs immediately began objecting to it.

The revenue-sharing bill has not been passed by the Cabinet.