Iraqi speaker: "The Prime Minister is openly accusing one of your colleagues of being a terrorist"

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2007/01/it-looked-quiet-from-my-place.html

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The parliamentary majority was supportive of Maliki’s approach but of course there were voices that criticized his plans and threw all sorts of accusations in his face. The Sadrists objected the arrest of some of their colleagues. Others complained that the participation of the Multi-National Force is wrong and would undermine the sovereignty of the government.

The biggest argument was when a Sunni cleric MP harshly criticized what he called a policy to target only certain parts of Baghdad (apparently referring to Haifa street and Latifiyah), and said the troops were killing civilians. The MP told Maliki that “We’ve lost trust in you as a head of the state….” An uproar began with many shouting from their seats. The cleric continued his verbal attack and the speaker tried to silence him by telling him he exceeded his time limit. He wouldn’t stop. The speaker then shut off the cleric’s microphone.

Maliki returned fire saying, “You in particular will regain your trust in this government when we send your file to a court of law. You talk about Latifiyah when you know, and everybody knows, that terrorists are right now holding 150 innocent citizens hostages in that city”.
This direct threat was met by applause from the members of the UIA.

The speaker (al-Mashhadani) didn’t like this response from Maliki and turned to the lawmakers and said “You applaud this? The Prime Minister is openly accusing one of your colleagues of being a terrorist and you applaud! This is unacceptable!”
The session descended into chaos with members in white and black turbans shouting at each other. The speaker lost his patience and screamed back “Enough of this sectarian speech making! You will set the streets on fire! How are we going to succeed if we’re divided like this?”