Al-Mashhadani did not let us defend him – IAF

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: MP from the Iraqi Accord Front Taha al-Lahiebi said on Friday that the resigned parliament’s Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani was the one who wanted to resign and he did not let us defend him. “Al-Mashhadani wanted to resign and I do not know whether the Islamic party pressured him, but he did not let us defend him,” al-Lahiebi told IraqiNews.com. Last Tuesday, the parliament accepted the resignation presented by Mahmoud al-Mashhadani during an extraordinary session after a heated debate erupted between al-Mashhadani and members of parliamentary committees over the issue of Iraqi Journalist Muntadhar al-Zaydi, who threw a pair of shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush at a Baghdad-based press conference last week. The Sunni Iraqi Accord Front has 38 seats in the 275-member Parliament. It comprises the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), the Iraqi People’s Congress (IPC), in addition to the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC) and the Independent Bloc, which announced their withdrawal from the front during a press conference earlier today. Concerning the withdrawal of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC) from the Sunni bloc, he said “Shiekh Khalaf al-Alyan has not resigned but objected the bloc’s candidature mechanism.” The Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC) and the Independents bloc had announced on Wednesday their withdrawal from the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front (IAF). SH (S) 1