The Iraqis do not yet have a law for sharing the nation’s oil wealth among the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, a law that the Bush administration believes will trigger multinational energy companies to invest in exploration and production in Iraq.Iraq progress report
March 16: As the fifth anniversary of the conflict in Iraq approaches, NBC’s Lester Holt gets a a status report from NBC’s Richard Engel. Nightly NewsAlso unfinished is a plan for new provincial elections. Iraq’s presidential council, which must give its nod to laws passed by the Iraqi parliament, rejected a plan for new elections last month, shipping it back to the legislature.
The rejection, a setback to the U.S. campaign for national reconciliation, came despite Cheney’s last-minute phone call to the main holdout on the three-member panel: Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite. Cheney was expected to speak with Abdul-Mahdi and the other two members of the council, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, while in Iraq.
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