It’s official now. The Iraqi Parliament has adjourned until Sept. 4 without passing legislation that would address the benchmarks Congress has set for us to keep our troops in their country.

I’ve been reading for several days they’ve been having a problem with even getting a quorum of 100 people present and yesterday the Speaker called the recess without a quorum present.

They are set to come back just 11 days before Gen. Petraeus is to give his report to Congress, and it might have gone over a bit better with some members if the parliament had worked and tried to pass legislation dealing with the political problems in that country.

Iraq’s parliament yesterday shrugged off U.S. criticism and adjourned for a month, as key lawmakers declared there is no point waiting any longer for the prime minister to deliver Washington-demanded benchmark legislation for their vote.

Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the final three-hour session without a quorum present and declared lawmakers will not reconvene until Sept. 4.

That date is just 11 days before the top U.S. military and political officials in Iraq must report to Congress on U.S. progress in taming violence and organizing conditions for sectarian reconciliation.

The recess, coupled with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s failure to get the key draft laws before legislators, may nourish growing opposition to the war among U.S. lawmakers, who could refuse to continue to fund it.

Critics questioned how Iraqi legislators can take a summer break while U.S. forces are fighting and dying to create conditions under which important laws could be passed toward ending sectarian political divisions and bloodshed.

But in leaving parliament, many lawmakers blamed Mr. al-Maliki.

“Even if we sit next month, there’s no guarantee that important business will be done,” said Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish legislator. The parliament extended its session by a month, having initially planned a recess for July and August.

I guess it’s not much different from our Congress, now that I think of it. They haven’t done anything either and are preparing to take the month of August off.

It must be written in stone somewhere that taking legislative holidays is a right earned by being elected to make your country better.

Of course, with all the griping that’s been coming out of our Congress this year about the Iraq war I can’t really blame the Iraqis for leaving in the heat of summer with air conditioning probably being sporadic at best. They know what Congress intends to do even if they pass all the bills our Congress wants them to pass.

It’s too bad our troops have to work in all that heat, but I don’t hear them complaining.