Missing In Action: Where The Hell is The Iraq Parliament?

Cernig's Newshog takes a hard look at a story that is as AWOL in the mainstream media and the blogosphere as Iraqi lawmakers are in the Iraq Parliament. He also points us to the International Herald Tribune piece on the missing Parliamentarians.

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Iraq's parliament failed to reconvene as scheduled Tuesday because so few members showed up after the month's recess.

Only about a dozen of the 275 members of parliament appeared at the Green Zone parliament building. Officials said the assembly would not try to meet again until sometime next week.

The legislature has several urgent items to consider including the oil law, constitutional review and changes in regulations that effectively bar many Sunnis from government jobs."

What gives?

Now, if I were an Iraqi politician, I'd probably be very afraid to show up, given how every aspect of their government is considered merely puppetry for the Bush Empire. But there has to be more to this than we're hearing from the few who bother to report upon it. Notes Cernig:

That's the whole AP report - no explanation, no relation to other events, nothing.

Yet this news could well have shocking repercussions for some of the most crucial Iraqi issues.

By the time the Iraqi parliament can try to convene again, the conference of "neighbours" will have already been and possibly gone. The backdrop to that conference is now one where the democratically elected represenatives of the Iraqi people either can't be bothered to turn up for work or are too scared to turn
up for work.

And what about the "surge" - it was meant to give Iraq's government breathing space to bring about reconcilliation, but the bulk of that government is now AWOL - and it's the bit that gives legitimacy to the Maliki cabinet, the Iraqi security forces and the occupation.

Stay tuned to Cernig; I think that blog is a better bet at ferreting out the story behind the story than the MSM.