Osama al-Nujaifi, speaker of the Iraqi parliament and the country's top Sunni Muslim official, said rebuilding projects "had unfavourable outcomes in general".
But the new parliament was at least able to elect a speaker, Osama al-Nujaifi (pictured above, right), an influential Sunni from the embattled northern city of Mosul, and to re-elect the incumbent president, Jalal Talabani (left), a Kurd.