By Ahmed Rasheed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers achieved a majorbreakthrough on Wednesday, passing the 2008 budget after weeksof delay and an amnesty law that could lead to the release ofthousands of prisoners from the country's jails.
Parliament also passed a provincial powers law that willdefine ties between Baghdad and local authorities. It allowsfor holding provincial elections by October 1 in which partieswho boycotted previous polls could win some local power.
"I'd like to congratulate the ... government and people ofIraq for these significant accomplishments," the U.S.ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, told reporters.
Scores of lawmakers had stormed out of the legislature onTuesday evening, blocking a vote on the bills in a sign of thedeep distrust between the country's Shi'ite, Sunni Arab andKurdish politicians. Some MPs said parliament should bedisbanded and new elections held.
But parliament convened again on Wednesday and despite awalkout by some lawmakers, managed to overcome a row overvoting procedures to pass the three measures as a package.
"We have proven today that Iraqis are just one bloc," saidparliament speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab.
Washington has pressed Iraqi leaders to pass legislation tohelp heal sectarian divisions that have festered during a SunniArab insurgency against U.S. forces and savage violence betweenmajority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis.
The laws passed on Wednesday are not among several keybenchmarks sought by the United States, but the measures,especially the amnesty law, would still form an importantcomponent of reconciliation, U.S. officials have said.
The main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, saidpassage of the amnesty law would help accelerate its return tothe Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The Front, which quit the government in August, has longdemanded the release of security detainees.
U.S. forces and Iraqi authorities each hold more than23,000 prisoners, many of them Sunni Arabs behind theinsurgency against the American-backed government that eruptedafter the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
"We have no doubt that passing this law will have aremarkably positive effect in speeding up the return of theAccordance Front to the government," said Salim al-Jubouri, alawmaker and spokesman for the bloc.
BITTERNESS OVER BUDGET
The government has said prisoners under investigation, ontrial or convicted could be eligible to be freed. The pardonwould exclude those convicted of major crimes such as murder.It only applies to prisoners in Iraqi custody.
Sunni Arab MPs said inmates who had spent longer than sixmonths in prison without being charged would be freed. So wouldprisoners who had been charged but not appeared before a judgefor a year.
Lawmakers had also spent weeks wrangling bitterly over thelevel of spending on the largely autonomous Kurdish region.
Some Shi'ite and Sunni Arab lawmakers had said Kurdistanshould get less money based on current population estimates.
Officials had said the prolonged delay in approving the $48billion budget was holding up vital spending at a time when theUnited States is urging the government to jumpstart the economyto take advantage of falls in violence.
In recent days, leaders of the political blocs agreed tovote on all three measures as a package because of mutualsuspicion that if one was voted on separately and approved, thefaction that wanted that most would renege on the rest.
Parliament also passed a law last month that will allowformer members of Saddam's Baath party to regain their jobs inthe government and military, a key demand of Sunni Arabs whowere dominant under the former dictator.
But Maliki's government has struggled to make headway onother key laws, especially legislation that would equitablyshare the country's vast oil reserves.
In Basra, negotiators said they had struck a deal torelease two CBS News journalists missing, believed kidnapped,in the country's southern oil city.
Police in Basra said the men, a British journalist and aninterpreter, were seized from a city centre hotel on Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Mike Holden, Aws Qusay, Tim Cocksand Mohammed Abbas; Writing by Dean Yates, Editing by SeanMaguire)
