The only benchmark Uncool and the Gang really care about……..

BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials said Friday that a U.S.-backed draft oil law will soon be returned to the Cabinet for approval after Kurds agreed to a compromise revenue’sharing measure. But they said many key sticking points remain unresolved - and not even addressed - in the watered-down legislation.

The United States has pressed the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to pass the oil law and several other pieces of benchmark legislation as a means of spurring reconciliation among the country’s sectarian and ethnic groups. The law is especially important to Sunni Arabs, who populate regions of Iraq that are largely without oil resources.

Kurds, who have big reserves and active fields in the north of the country, balked at previous draft legislation, believing it did not guarantee them a fair share of the revenue from fields they control or hope to control.

Shiites, who control major resources in the south and who have taken political control of the government after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni rule, have been reluctant to share revenues with their former tormentors.

Passage of even a watered-down oil law would allow the Bush administration to point to some progress before the American military leadership reports to Congress on progress in the campaign to clamp off Iraqi violence.

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