Women in Power: Iraq v. U.S.

The interim Iraqi constitution requires that a quarter of the legislature to be elected in January must be women.

How does this compare with the composition of United States Congress? Women occupy 14 of the 100 seats in the Senate according to the official statistics.

The statistics for the House are harder to locate. Yahoo reports that in October 2001, the House had 62 women, in its total membership of 433 (two seats being vacant at the time). That's 14 percent--remarkably consistent with the Senate figure (which was 13% in Oct. 2001).

MSN Encarta offers the following additional details about the House:

Women have also found it difficult to win election to the House, holding fewer than 4 percent of the seats from the early 20th century through the 1980s. However, women have recently broken new ground; in the 107th Congress (2001-2003), 61 women served in the House, giving them 14 percent of the chamber’s seats.

Of course, not all members of a legislative body are necessarily equal, so this doesn't necessarily that Iraqi women will have more power than American women in their respective legislatures.

I would like to know how many women served in Iraq's legislature during Saddam's (benighted) time.